It was commissioned by the military leader and diplomat Philippe Pot around the year 1480 to be used for his burial at the chapel of Saint-Jean-Baptiste in Cîteaux Abbey, Dijon, France.

After the latter's defeat by René II, Duke of Lorraine at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, Pot switched allegiance to the French king, Louis XI, who appointed him grand seneschal of Burgundy.

Art historians generally cite Antoine Le Moiturier as the most likely designer of the pleurants, based on circumstantial evidence, including similarities to others of his known works.

[6] Soon after Charles's defeat and death in January 1477 at the Battle of Nancy, Burgundy came under French control, and Pot seemingly changed allegiance to Louis XI, king of France (r. 1461–1483).

[4] He travelled in August 1477 on behalf of Louis to Lens in northern France to negotiate a truce with Mary and her husband and co-ruler, Maximilian of Austria.

[4][7] Pot died in Dijon on 20 September 1493, aged around 65, having already made detailed plans for his burial place, funeral monument and epitaph.

[9] Pot's monument was one of the last of the Burgundian-style tombs, whose characteristics include the deceased having naturalised faces, open eyes and angels above their heads.

[13][16] Pot commissioned his tomb some 13 years before he died, with his date of death left blank during construction; the current one was probably added in the 19th century.

[9] The tomb's extensive inscriptions indicate he wished to leave a record of his importance and prosperity, and to explain his change in allegiance to Louis XI.

[21] The full weight of the stone slab is supported by a narrow point on a shoulder of each figure, a feat described by the French art historian Sophie Jugie as "masterful ... in its technical audacity".

[27] Although mourners with black hoods were not common in contemporary sculpture or painting, they can be found on works such as the mid-15th-century "Office of the Dead" miniature from Jean Fouquet's illuminated manuscript the "Hours of Étienne Chevalier".

[28] Each bears a painted and gilded heraldic shield that refers to specific members of Pot's lineage, indicating the monument is of the "kinship tomb" type.

[21][31] The clothing contains deep, angular folds, and seems influenced by the works of the mid-15th-century Early Netherlandish painters such as Rogier van der Weyden (d. 1464).

Antoine Le Moiturier (d. 1495) is often suggested as likely to have designed the pleurants, given the similarity of the solid and rigid rendering of their clothing to the Mourners of Dijon which are often attributed to him.

[40][2] Art historians generally distinguish between the conventional design of the effigy, the expressive form of the mourners, and the inventive placing of the slab on narrow points above each of their shoulders.

The art historian Robert Marcoux notes variabilities in skill, and believes that parts of the sculpture are so sparsely detailed that they were likely completed by workshop members.

The antiquarian and collector François Roger de Gaignières (d. 1715) made drawings of the tomb between 1699 and 1700, which are lost and known only from copies by the artist Louis Boudan (fl.

[45][46] Richard's son Pierre sold the townhouse in 1850 and relocated the tomb to the Château de Vesvrotte in Beire-le-Châtel, Côte-d'Or,[47] where it was again placed in an outdoor garden.

[5][46] The tomb was cleaned and restored several times in the 19th century, as evidenced by comparison to earlier reproductions, such as an engraving that shows Pot's fingers as being badly damaged.

Surface layers of bleach, gloss and brown fouling of the blazons were taken off, the unpainted stone was cleaned, and additions from earlier restorations were removed.

[45] In 2010 the American sculptor Matthew Day Jackson exhibited The Tomb, a wood and plastic installation showing astronauts carrying a glass box containing a human skeleton.