It was commissioned by the industrialist Alfred Mosselman and first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1847, where it and Thomas Couture's The Romans in their Decadence were the most commented-upon works.

[1] Clésinger had modelled his work on a life-cast of Mosselman's mistress, the demi-mondaine Apollonie Sabatier (1822–1890), later Charles Baudelaire's muse.

The direct use of a life cast as the basis for a sculpture was highly controversial in the 19th century, particularly in its realism, such as the reproduction of the model's cellulite.

Clésinger's friend Théophile Gautier orchestrated a response to the art critics' scandalised reviews, ensuring the sculpture's great success.

This was exhibited in room 4 of the Petit Palais in the 1848 Salon – Théophile Gautier wrote that it showed "pure orgiastic delirium, the disheveled Maenad tumbled at the feet of Bacchus, father of liberty and joy ... A powerful spasm of happiness contracts and raises the young woman's opulent bosom and in fact makes the sparkling breasts spring up.".