Apollo and Daphne is the latest in a series of commissions given by Cardinal Scipione Borghese to the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who at the time was in his early twenties. The execution of the sculptural group was started in August 1622, but was interrupted in the summer of 1623, as Bernini hastened to complete his David
The sculptural group "Apollo and Daphne" was finally completed in the autumn of 1625 and immediately received rave reviews as one of the most impressive works of the young artist. As in the case of the Rape of Proserpina, a cartouche was attached to the base of the Apollo and Daphne, with a moral couplet composed by Maffeo Barberini, the future Pope Urban VIII: "Quisquis amans sequitur fugitivae gaudia formae fronde manus implet baccas seu carpit amaras" ( He who loves and pursues the joys of fleeting beauty fills his hand with leaves and plucks bitter berries).
These edifying lines were supposed to serve as a justification for the presence of a sculpture on a pagan subject in the cardinal's collection.

The plot is based on an ancient Greek myth retold in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Daphne is a character of ancient Greek mythology, a beautiful nymph. Pursued by Apollo, seized with passion for her, she, having taken a vow of chastity, turned to the gods with a plea to change her appearance in order to avoid persecution, and was turned into a laurel tree, which then became the sacred tree of Apollo.