This work is the pair of Le Tapis Vert (inv. 626) and, like that painting, derives from the two larger versions in the Musée national du château at Versailles. In 1777, Robert presented Louis XVI with his project for the new presentation of the sculptural group Les Bains d’Apollon, which had known two earlier installations. The work began in 1778 and continued until 1780, when the ensemble was installed definitively.

In an artificial rocky grotto, flanked by stone columns designed to suggest the setting of the palace of Thetis, a central sculptural group, Apollo Attended by Nymphs, was placed, accompanied by the Tritons Grooming Two Horses of the Sun, with one situated on each flank. Of the three groups sculpted in marble by Girardon, Regnaudin, and G. and B. Marsy, in the seventeenth century, only one by the latter pair can be seen in this painting, still standing on its original socle.