Jan-Frans van Geel was born in Mechelen in 1756. He was taught by Willem Jacob Herreyns and, later on, Pieter Valckx. In 1784 he became a faculty member of the Mechelen Academy; later on, he would teach at the Antwerp Academy as well. His students included, among others, Willem Geefs, Louis Royer and Joseph Tuerlinckx. Stylistically, van Geel continued the late Flemish baroque tradition, although he was certainly influenced by neoclassicism, especially from the late 1790's onwards.

His most important works include the pulpit of the Church of St Andrew in Antwerp, a series of statues of saints for the Church of St Jacob in Antwerp and a series of terracotta bozzetti, religious as well as mythological. For many of his architectural and sculptural projects, van Geel produced sketches and drawings, several of which are kept in the Museum Plantin-Moretus – Prentenkabinet (Antwerp) and the Royal Library (Brussels).

The present drawing - a Caritas Romana ("Roman Charity") - was once part of the collection of Charles Van Herck, an important Antwerp-based art dealer and auctioneer who specialized in drawings as well as terracottas by Flemish baroque sculptors, amassing a great collection of them during his lifetime. More than forty years after his death, the bulk of his estate was purchased by the King Baudouin Foundation; most of it was given on loan to major Belgian institutions and museums.