This fragmentary figure preserves in its title one of Rodin's most important friendships. The sculptor met Mathias Morhardt in 1888, and for the next decade the young Swiss critic and poet was one of Rodin's most adroit and steadfast defenders.

The title probably records a gift of the sculpture to Morhardt, possibly after his successful intervention with the Balzac committee in 1894. Photographs of Rodin¹s studio, usually dated about 1890, record a plaster of this subject.

Surviving only in three lifetime versions, this figure is usually dated to the 1890s. The proportions and roundness of the forms suggest that Rodin derived the pose from antique Greek sculpture, of which he was an avid, important collector (a copy of the Hellenistic Crouching Venus was among the Greek marbles Rodin donated to the State).

While the distressed surface may imitate the decay and weathering found in classical fragments, the actual model for the work may have been the "fat model," an anonymous professional sitter employed frequently by Rodin during the early 1890s. The pose also refers to a limbering-up exercise performed by athletes and dancers, Rodin's preferred models during this period.