Hercule-François, Duke of Alençon and of Anjou (1555-84) was the fourth and youngest son of Henry II of France and Catherine de Médicis. He was called Hercule until his confirmation in 1566, when he was renamed in memory of his grandfather Francis I. In 1569 he was seriously ill with smallpox which left him permanently scarred. Marriage between him and Elizabeth I was proposed in 1572 as part of negotiations between England and France to counter the power of Spain. He courted the Queen again between 1579 and 1581, though he was only 24 and she was 46. It seemed that in 1576 Hercule-François was planning to join the Protestant Germans and Swiss against his Catholic brother Henry III. Two years later he formed an alliance with William of Orange and the Dutch, but after a dramatic and failed attempt to lay siege to Antwerp he returned to France and an early death.

This is a head-and-shoulders reduction of a full-length portrait listed in Van der Doort's inventory of 1639 (RCIN 402791). The sitter wears a black jewelled jacket and a high white lace ruff; with two earrings in his right ear and a hint of a moustache and beard.