Agustín Esteve y Marqués descended from a long line of artists dating back to the 15th century. He began his own artistic career in the studio of his father, the altarpiece painter, Agustín Esteve Torralba. He was admitted to the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in Valenica in 1768 and later to the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, where his style was influenced by the work of Francisco Bayeu, Mariano Salvador Maella and Anton Raphael Mengs. In 1775, Esteve met Francisco de Goya while working in the Spanish court, where he was often employed to replicate many of Goya's royal commissions, perhaps contributing to the frequent confusion between the two artists' works. Esteve was a celebrated as a portraitist in his own right, his prices eventually surpassed those of Goya, and he completed commissions for the most important aristocratic families.

Francisco de Borja Álvarez de Toledo y Gonzaga had a distinguished military career, as suggested by the uniform he wears in this portrait. Upon his return to the Spanish court, King Ferdinand VII appointed him Gentleman of the Chamber and Head Equerry to the Queen. His wife, Doña María Tomasa Palafox y Portocarrero, was both a patron of Goya and an artist in her own right. Alice Jane McVan speculates that the Marchioness may have been among Esteve's pupils, he is known to have provided drawing lessons to the Osuna family and other members of the nobility (op. cit., p. 70). Together the couple had six children; depicted here is their eldest son Francisco, who died at the age of sixteen.