Maurice Sand was the son of the novelist George Sand. In Nohant, where his mother lived and where he spent most of his time even after his marriage to Lina Calamatta, a puppet theater was born in October 1847. Improvised in a rudimentary way (two roughly carved logs, a chair back and a sheet), the first sketches inspired a desire to build a shack, then, in 1854, a real puppet booth set up in the same room where George Sand, her family and friends performed improvised comedies in their " big theater ". Until 1863, the work of the small group encompassed both the actors' theater and the puppet theater, with the plays being written over dinner, then staged and performed in the evening. Then, until 1886, Maurice devoted himself entirely to the puppet theater, either in Nohant or in Paris where he put on his "Théâtre des amis" shows in his studio.

Maurice Sand wrote several dozen plays for puppets. He sculpted their heads and invented several ingenious devices to stage several characters simultaneously, create sound effects, and vary the scenery and lighting, while his mother made the costumes. A selection of his plays was published shortly after his death: Le Théâtre des marionnettes de Maurice Sand, Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1890.