A plaster of Hylas Surprised by the Nymphs was donated by Gibson in his will, together with the complete contents of his studio, to the Royal Academy in London, where a Gibson Gallery was installed. In 1912, the plaster was listed in a description of the Gibson Gallery by Mardy T. Rees. At some point after this date, the Royal Academy's plaster was damaged and disappeared.

Although Gibson in his later work experimented with tinted marble sculptures, the present plaster was to be white or off-white, like all the life-size plasters in the studios of the Neo-classical sculptors in Rome. Gibson was thirty odd years younger than Antonio Canova (1757-1822) and Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770-1844), whose workshops were most splendid sights on the tourist route in Rome. As a young man, Gibson worked in Canova's studio, and after the master's death his studio became the center of the Neo-classical school in Rome. He stayed in Italy for the rest of his life, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy in London, and receiving most of his commissions from England.

The subject has been treated by numerous Greek and Roman writers, including Theocritus, whose version became the most popular one. Hylas, the favorite servant boy of Hercules, was fetching water at a spring when nymphs caught sight of him, became enamored by his beauty, and pulled him into the water. Hylas was never seen again.