Chapu was a Second Empire sculptor with rare lyric gifts. His young winged genius bows the violin before a cityscape that represents Thebes, the walls of which were said to have been raised to the strains of a lyre played by Amphion, the diminutive figure seated at right. The imagery thus unites the harmonies of music and architecture. This terracotta is the model for one of six silvered-bronze reliefs, allegories of the arts, that were destined for the drawing room of a house built by Chapu's architect friend Paul Sédille. Located in Paris on the boulevard Magenta, it was completed in 1870.