Giovanni Antonio Guardi was the last great Rococo artist in Venice. His elegant decorative historical and religious paintings of the 1740s and 50s were famous.

This is one of the many portraits of his patron the collector Field Marshall Count von der Schulenburg. He painted at least 20 such portraits, which the Field Marshall gave away to friends and relatives. Only two survive. This one captures the patrician elegance of the sitter. The light touch of the brush is characteristic of late Rococo painting.