Pieter Pourbus was born in Gouda and subsequently moved to Bruges where he married the daughter of the artist Lancelot Blondeel. He is recorded as a painter of religious subjects, allegorical scenes, and portraits. In addition to this he worked as a town planner under the direction of the Bruges Magistrates and as a cartographer, making maps of the coast of Flanders for Charles V.

In 1540 Pourbus is recorded as a member of the Saint George Guild of Crossbowmen, as a Master of the Bruges Painters' Guild in 1543 (he became Dean in 1569), and as a costume designer for the Rhetoricians involved in the ceremonial entry into Bruges of 1549 by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his son Philip, later Philip II. Pourbus owned a large house in Bruges, which he called 'Rome', from where he operated a large and successful studio that caused Karel van Mander to comment, 'I have never seen a better equipped ('beter ingerichte') studio than this' (translation from R. H. Wilenski, Flemish Painters, 1430-1830, I, p. 626).

The present hitherto unpublished painting appears to be dated either 1547 or 1557. The later dating is perhaps more likely by comparison with a signed and dated Deposition of 1558 in the church of Saint Maurice, Annecy, France (see the catalogue of the exhibition, Pierre Pourbus, maître brugeois, 1524-1584, Burges, Musée Memling, June 29-Sept. 30, 1984, p. 100, fig. 43; and a Crucifixion triptych datable to circa 1559 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Inv. no. 878 (see Die Gemäldegalerie des Kunsthistorischen Museums in Wien, 1991, pl. 313).

An inventory number '1601' is on a label pasted to the front of the painting.