In her introduction to the catalogue Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, which accompanied an exhibition held at the Fogg Art Museum from November 1975 to January 1976, Jeanne L. Wassermann discussed this mask:

The richness of American collections in Rodin sculpture has allowed us to assemble some fifteen casts of The Man with the Broken Nose. One of our most dramatic moments occurred when we first observed this assemblage lined up on a counter in the Fogg’s Objects Conservation Laboratory. Only then did we recognize the variety of the mounting angles represented by the different editions and the effect these had, not only on the height measurements, but on the expressive impact of the portrait itself. Change in the tilt of the head, which was quite possibly a decision made by the foundry and not the sculptor, expands the range of mood conveyed by this portrait of "Bibi" from a lively characterization to one of tragedy, deep contemplation, or sophisticated worldliness.

Early in his career, in late 1862 or early 1863, while making decorative sculpture and working as an apprentice to conventional sculptors, Rodin created The Man with the Broken Nose, a work that he would refer to as "the first good piece of modelling I ever did."