Charles I bought this work from his miniature painter, Peter Oliver, from whom he commissioned various “limning” copies (in miniature) after many of the King’s most cherished Italian Renaissance paintings - the copies appear in Van der Doort’s inventory of the Cabinet Room.

Today, the painting’s attribution is the subject of the debate; some think it by the workshop of Titian, others by another Venetian artist Gian Paolo Pace who was much influenced by the older master.