Corradini was commissioned by alchemist, freemason and nobleman Raimondo di Sangro to sculpt this piece for his family's burial chapel, the Cappella Sansevero (formally known as Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà, and nicknamed by the locals “Pietatella”) in Naples, where the marble sculpture remains today. It was dedicated to Sangro's mother, Cecilia Gaetani dell’Aquila d’Aragona, who had died before his first year of age.
