Gustav IV Adolf, born in 1778, son of King Gustav III of Sweden and his wife Sophia-Magdalena, became King of Sweden in 1792 following to the murder of his father. One year after the declaration of his majority in 1796, he married Dorothea Wilhelmina of Baden. In 1809, he had to abdicate and left Sweden for Saint-Gallen where he died in 1837.
A signed version of the present miniature, of circular shape, is illustrated in Leo R. Schidlof, La miniature en Europe, Graz 1964, vol. III, pl. 76.