Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552-1612), a member of the House of Habsburg, was an important patron of the arts, favouring particularly the Northern Mannerist style of the time, as well as a collector of Old Master paintings by the likes of Dürer and Brueghel.

This work is one of several similar portraits of the emperor painted after 1590 and before his death in 1612. The version most alike to this portrait was made by Hans von Aachen, one of Rudolf’s favourite painters and art advisors, today part of the collection of the Gemäldegalerie in Vienna. After training in the Netherlandish style, Hans von Aachen spent more than a decade working in Venice before spending his final years in Prague, the location of Rudolf’s Imperial Court. His painting style thus combines aspects of both Northern and Italian Renaissance traditions.

Before becoming Holy Roman Emperor in 1576, Rudolf resided in the Spanish court of his uncle Philip II for more than eight years (1563–1571); a portrait of him from this time by Spanish artist Alonso Sánchez Coello is also in the Royal Collection (RCIN 405798). After taking up residence in Prague, Rudolf retained a strong preference for Spanish fashions, insisting that his ambassador in Madrid send him descriptions and samples of the clothes worn by the Spanish king.

In this closely-cropped portrait, Rudolf wears an ermine-trimmed black velvet cloak with gold buttons, a starched ruff and a feathered hat. The Order of the Golden Fleece hangs from a jewelled chain around his neck, highly visible against his dark clothes, in a manner notably similar to that in which the Spanish kings wore the Order. This was Rudolf's usual attire once he became Emperor: Pierre Bergeron, the traveller from France in 1600 wrote about Rudolf II’s appearance, describing ‘[…] this Emperor of medium height, so well postured for his age of forty-nine. He was red in face and had chestnut brown intractable beard and hair. He was dressed […] with the Order of the Golden Fleece on his neck and wore a hat made of black velvet, decorated with a grey feather’.