This work is a copy after a portrait of 1797 of Juliane, later Grand Duchess Anna Feodorovna, by Vigée Le Brun (Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow). Le Brun recorded that she painted two half length portraits of the Princess during her sojourn in St Petersburg, and one of these was recorded in the Herzogliches Museum, Gotha before the Second World War.

The original portrait dates from around the time of the sitter’s marriage to Grand Duke Constantine, brother to Alexander I and Nicholas I. However, her marriage was not a success; by 1813 she had settled in Switzerland, and the couple were divorced in 1820. The sitter was described by Vigée Le Brun in her Memoirs as ‘not as outstandingly beautiful as her sister-in-law, but still very pretty. She must have been about sixteen and the most lively exuberance shone through her features’.

A copy by William Corden the Younger, which forms part of a set of family portraits, is in the Royal Collection (RCIN 407174).