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By the 16th century, Venice was the most powerful republic in Europe. Situated at the crossroads of trade routes stretching across sea and land, its thriving commerce in luxury materials and wide range of patronage encouraged both artistic opportunity and fierce competition. 

Portraits grew in scale, ambition and complexity in the first half of the 16th century with contradiction at the heart of Renaissance portraiture. A key feature of 16th-century northern Italian portraiture is its striking realism. The early decades after 1500 saw a lively exchange of ideas between leading artistic centres such as Venice, Florence and Rome. Painters developed distinctive styles that became hallmarks of their cities. 

Spain was a global power at the end of the 1600s. The ruling Habsburg dynasty controlled territories across Europe including parts of present-day Belgium, the Netherlands and all of southern Italy. They had also conquered and colonised lands in the Americas and the Philippines.

Charles I (1600–1649), King of Great Britain and Ireland, and Henrietta Maria of France (1609–1669) were married in 1625. Over the following two decades they assembled one of the most celebrated art collections in Europe. During the English Civil War (1642–1651), Henrietta Maria went into exile in France and Charles I was captured, put on trial for treason and executed in 1649. Only a few months later their collection was sold off and dispersed at the Commonwealth Sale.