"The Milmore Memorial," also known as "The Angel of Death and the Sculptor," was a commission from the family of the Boston sculptor Martin Milmore (1844–1883) to honor his memory and that of his brother Joseph (1841–1886). The original bronze statue, cast in Paris in 1892, was erected the following year in Forest Hills Cemetery, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. When the plaster model was shown at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, it received acclaim that assured French's status at the forefront of his profession. In 1917, the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert W. de Forest, asked French, who was also a Museum trustee, about acquiring a replica of the bronze. French contracted the Piccirilli Brothers, New York's leading firm of marble carvers, to carve the statue in marble. Completed in 1926, this marble version required certain changes to accommodate the structural needs of the medium.