Novosielski, the son of an émigré Polish Count, trained as an architect. He designed the King’s Theatre, London (1790-91), a plan of which he holds here. The picture, along with a lost portrait of his wife, was finished in March 1792 in Rome. Kauffmann spent her early years in Italy, moving to London in 1766, where she was a founder member of the Royal Academy and friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds. She married the artist Antonio Zucchi and moved to Rome in 1781.