Raimundo de Madrazo was the portrait painter par excellence to the wealthy Spanish colony living in Paris in the final quarter of the nineteenth century. This full-length portrait is an example of the affected perfection that characterized this painter's female portraiture. Such works generally employed relevant settings such as the floral tapestry that hangs behind the elegant figure of the Marchioness of Manzandedo. The sumptuousness and rhetoric of this portrait is also evident in the carved wooden and bronze frame with garlands that enter part of the pictorial surface, making it an exceptional part of this portrait.

Born in Cuba in 1857, Josefa Manzanedo belonged to one of the wealthiest families of her time. She lived in Paris and frequented the colony of Spanish painters there, maintaining economic and sentimental ties with Madrid, where she retired at the end of her life, which ended in 1925.

The Prado Museum collection also has another portrait of Josefa de Manzanedo, made in 1872 by Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (P2628).

This work was bequeathed to the Prado Museum by the Marchioness herself in 1927.