Phillip of France, I Duke of Orléan, was the second son of Louis XIII of France and the Spanish Infanta Ana of Austria; born on September 21, 1640; died June 9, 1701, in Saint-Cloud. He was the father of María Luisa de Orleans, Queen of Spain when she married Carlos II.

This canvas is one of a group of portraits collected by María Luisa de Orleans (1662-1689), first wife of Carlos II of Spain, which would become part of the Royal Collection. Some of these paintings must have decorated the Queen´s Gallery in the Alcázar (Madrid), a representation space where the Queen launched a decorative and iconographic program of exaltation of her dynasty. Others would be portraits of smaller relatives, generally of bust, that the sovereign would receive as a gift from them and that would decorate the private rooms of her room.

Puerto Mendoza, Eduardo, Una serie de retratos de escuela francesa del Museo del Prado en relación con la colección de María Luisa de Orleans: sugerencias y precisiones. Philostrato. Revista de Historia y Arte, Madrid, Instituto Moll, 2018, p.5-32 [25]