Pourbus was court painter to Archduke Albert in Brussels when he went to Italy in 1600 at the invitation of Vincenzo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua. This portrait should depict the daughter of the Duke of Mantua, Margherita, to judge by the complete portrait of Pourbus of her from 1605 in the Uffizi, Florence. In this period, Rubens also worked for Vincenzo Gonzaga, but he eagerly left the painting of formal portraits and a gallery of 'beauties' to Pourbus, who in 1611 became Maria de 'Medici's court painter in Paris.
Frans Pourbus (II) (Antwerp, autumn 1569 - Paris, buried February 19, 1622), also called Frans Pourbus the Younger, was a Brabant painter and son of Frans Pourbus (I). Pourbus' oeuvre remained virtually unstudied for a long time. Art-historical attention always went to his ancestors or to his Antwerp contemporary Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Nevertheless, the work of this artist is an important link in the development of Dutch portraiture: he synthesized the developments of the 16th century and formed a transition from the Renaissance to the 17th century Baroque.
