The sitter portrayed here is the celebrated mathematician and painter, Jean-François Niceron who joined the Minims religious order in 1632. The Minims convent, located just north of the Place Royale in the Marais district of Paris, played a central role in the development of geometry and the seventeenth-century study of Ancient Greek scientific texts. Niceron was fascinated by the visual possibilities offered by new developments in optical science such as different forms of perspective, and he began an anamorphosis artwork—a distorted projection or drawing which appears normal when viewed from a particular angle or with a mirror—for the Parisian convent on the theme of Saint John in Patmos, and in 1639 another work al fresco for one of the cloisters at the Roman convent of Santissima Trinità dei Monti, the building depicted in the landscape of the present painting. In 1638, at the age of 25, he published an influential treatise on the geometric algorithms for producing anamorphic art titled La perspective curieuse, ou magie artificielle des effets merveilleux.

This painting is probably the prime image on which a contemporaneous engraving by French draftsman Michel Lasne (circa 1590–4 December 1667) is based. The print follows the composition of the painting in the opposite orientation, with an error in the design translation from painting to print, and small changes evident in the background beyond Niceron. The engraver never visited Rome so the architectural accuracy falls away. The present anonymous painting was most likely created during Niceron's second Roman stay (post January 1641 until April 1642), and the Lasne engraving used this picture as a model once the canvas was brought to France.