This statue began as a technical experiment by Giovanni da Bologna. Ancient records claimed that the Romans had created statues from single blocks of stone, which was found to be untrue by Renaissance historians. da Bologna set out to achieve what the Romans could not by creating a complex group of figures from a single block of stone, in a composition which originally had no name or mythical inspiration. When Francesco I de'Medici decreed that the statue be put on public display, da Bologna named it the Rape of the Sabine Women, after a legend about the founders of Rome abducting the unmarried women of a neighboring tribe to swell their numbers. (In this context, "rape" is a direct translation of the Latin "raptio," which means something more like "abduction," especially of several women at a time.)

The three figures, two men and a woman, are closely packed together and elongated after the Mannerist fashion. Bologna's masterful creation of a "figura serpentinata," a spiraling style of composition popular at the time, curls upward in a tight spiral, culminating in the woman's outstretched hand. No one principal viewpoint exists for the observer; the statue may be viewed from multiple angles. The various emotions of the group and the dynamic posing gives the statue an uplifting motion and an undeniable sense of movement. As a demonstration of technical skill it is truly impressive and undoubtedly da Bologna's masterpiece, especially when compared with the serene, static figures of seventy or eighty years before. However, his self-imposed limit provided by the single block of marble leaves the statue feeling tense and cramped.