The present portrait of John, Prince of Brazil and Duke of Braganza, later King John VI of Portugal, was presumably acquired as a pair with a portrait of his wife, Carlota Joaquina of Spain (RCIN 406071). They were both reframed in the nineteenth century in identical Thomas Ponsonby frames. The portraits appear to be nineteenth century copies of portraits by Giuseppe Troni, an Italian artist who became court painter in Lisbon after he moved to the city in 1785. RCIN 406071 is related to a work by the artist in the Prado, Madrid. Although known portraits of the Prince at a similar age by Troni exist, an exact source for the present portrait is yet to be established.

Here the Prince appears as a young man, before he became Regent or King. After his elder brother Jose, Prince of Brazil, died of smallpox in 1788, John became heir to the Portuguese throne, serving as Prince Regent from 1792 and King of Portugal and Brazil from 1816. Upon his marriage to Carlota, Infanta of Spain in 1785, he became a Knight of the Golden Fleece and in this portrait the order hangs from his buttonhole. He wears the Portuguese Order of Christ around his neck.