Christophe Gabriel Allegrain was a pupil of Martin, an ornamental sculptor, and by his marriage, in 1733, became brother-in-law to Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. His earlier career was dominated by the relationship with Pigalle, on monuments including the mausoleum of the Maréchal de Saxe and the monument to Louis XV for the Place Royale, Reims. His sole court commission was the Venus at Bath (Paris, Louvre), commissioned in 1756 and completed c. 1767, which is his most famous work. His own talents in the field of portrait sculpture and funerary art can be appreciated in the monument to Charles-Joseph de Pollinchove (1763) in the church of St Pierre, Douai.