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On January 14, 1852, the printer and publisher of Charles Baudelaire, Auguste Poulet-Malassis, after a visit to Daumier's studio, recorded seeing a representation of a washer-woman pulling a young girl along a quay in a high wind, a possible reference to this sculpture. It was a theme that the artist also treated in paintings and drawings. Daumier did not consider himself a sculptor. The few pieces that he did produce are thought to have been intended as "maquettes" (models) for his pictures. The compositions original inspiration may have been an illustration to a passage in Eugene Süe's well known "Mystères de Paris" (1843). The drawing by Charles Joseph Travies de Villers was engraved by Hippolyte Lavoignat and shows the waif Fleur-de-Marie with the one-eyed "La Chouette" returning home across the Pont-Notre Dame.