The sitter, daughter of Prince Sobieski, married Prince James Francis Edward Stuart (1688-1766), at Montefiascone on 1 September 1719. Under the terms of the anglo-French Treaty of 1716 that ended the War of Spanish Succession, 'The Old Pretender' had been forced to leave France after the failure of the 1715 uprising against George I. He settled in Rome in 1717 in the Palazzo del Re, a gift from Pope Clement XI. The house became the centre for Jacobite sympathizers on the Grand Tour.

William Mosman visited Rome in 1732 and stayed for six years, where he made a number of copies of Stuart portraits. Mosman based his image on Francesco Trevisani's portrait of Maria Clementina of 1719, a version of which was sold at Christie's, South Kensington, 29 October 2015, lot 112. The present lot was presumably painted after Mosman's prime copy of 1733 which is today in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (acc. no. PG 886) and was previously attributed to Francesco Trevisani.