Reg Butler created the figures for Le Musée Imaginaire during the winter of 1961-62 at his Berkhamsted studio. Unique within a practice devoted almost exclusively to the single female nude, the complete work brought together thirty-nine sculptures. Each was conceived independently and without a narrative, modelled in solid wax, with some heads cast and carved in plaster.

Butler initially planned to exhibit and sell the figures separately, arranging them on shelves in an alcove in his studio. Before any were sold, however, he established a permanent configuration that he believed should always be followed. Nine editions were produced, with the first three cast by Morris Singer and the remaining six by Valsuani.

Originally exhibited as Series of Small Bronzes, the group was renamed after Butler encountered André Malraux’s Le Musée Imaginaire, later translated as ‘Museum without Walls’. Its photographs of prehistoric and other historic sculptures appealed to the artist, who owned a cast of the Willendorff Venus. Several figures incorporate features derived from Neolithic sculpture, including multiple pairs of breasts.