This is a cameo miniature of King Louis XVI (1754-93), Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755-93) and their second son, Louis Charles (1785-85). Louis XVI was the last king of France before the French Revolution. The royal family was forcibly brought from Versailles to Paris in October 1789 and their attempt to flee the country in 1791 ended when they reached Varennes. The monarchy was abolished in September 1792 and Louis was guillotined in January 1793.

Marie-Antoinette was a daughter of Maria Theresa and the Emperor Francis I. She married the future Louis XVI of France in 1770, becoming queen four years later. She became a focus for opposition to reform and won widespread unpopularity through her extravagant lifestyle. Like her husband, she was imprisoned during the French Revolution and eventually executed in October 1793.

Louis-Charles (1785-95) was the second son of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette. He became dauphin (heir to the throne) after the death of his elder brother, Louis-Joseph, in June 1789, shortly after the outbreak of the French Revolution. With the overthrow of the monarchy in 1792, he was imprisoned with the rest of the royal family in the Temple, Paris. When his father was beheaded, the French nobles in exile proclaimed Louis-Charles as the new king of France. In July 1793, he was taken from his mother and put under the care of a cobbler, Antoine Simon. In January 1794, Louis was again imprisoned in the Temple, where he died.

This is a variation of a miniature signed by Louis-Bertin Parant (1768-1851) in the National Museum, Stockholm, where the profiles face to the right. Parant specialised in miniatures imitating cameos. He worked in the porcelain manufactory of Sèvres and also produced lithographs. Napoleon I, his wife Josephine and Louis XVIII were among his patrons. Parant exhibited at the Paris Salon between 1800 and 1834.