The sculptor Georges Saupique is especially noted for his large-scale, carved bas-reliefs, often of animals, that reflect France's cultural and colonial power. He undertook both public and private commissions, including creating four reliefs for the SS Normandie. This plaster bas-relief was used in the creation of the monumental carved stone Fontaine des Lions, which was displayed in the courtyard of the A.O.F. Pavilion (French West Africa Pavilion) during the 1931 Paris International Colonial Exhibition. The Albert Kahn museum in Boulogne-Billancourt maintained photographs of the Fontaine des lions by Frédéric Gadmer (1878-1954) during the Paris exhibition 1931. 



As suggested by the inscription in the bottom right, this workshop plaster was dedicated and gifted two years later, in 1933, to Mrs. Simone Mailliard, a French art historian and project manager at Musée des Monuments Français (now Palais de Chaillot – Cité de l’Architecture). 



Signed, dated, and inscribed, "A Simone Mailliard souvenir amical G. SAUPIQUE 1933".