John of Austria (Don Juan, 1547–78), illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V, commanded the fleets of the Holy League at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. A representation of Lepanto can be seen in the cartouche at the bottom of the print, and the fictive architectural structure is flanked by squadrons of ships also referring to the battle. This is an Italian print.

This print is lettered in Italian at the upper centre: "GENERAL DELLA / S.TA LEGHA."; around the portrait: "IL S.R DON GIO DE AVSTRIA."

The print formed part of an album of portrait prints assembled by Cassiano dal Pozzo in Rome and described in an early nineteenth-century inventory of prints in George III's library as Military Commanders, comprising 143 prints. The album was dismantled later in the nineteenth century and its contents sold during the early twentieth century, when only a few of Cassiano's foreign non-royal portrait prints were retained for the collection.

For more information see Mark McDonald, The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. I: Ceremonies, Costumes, Portraits and Genre, 3 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017, part of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné, cat. no. 1412.