The sitter was born in Paris on 15 June 1716. In 1733 he married the fifteen-year-old Theodore-Elisabeth-Cathérine de Besenval de Bronstadt, daughter of Jean-Victor de Besenval Brondstadt, Ambassadeur des Cantons Suisses to the Polish court, and later Général Suisse au Service de la France. The family tie was further maintained when Theodore-Elisabeth-Cathérine's brother, Pierre-Victor, Baron de Besenval, became aide de camp to the Maréchal de Broglie, before seeing active service with him in Bohemia in 1748. He died in 1786. The Mémoires de Monsieur le baron de Besenval were published posthumously in Paris in 1805 and 1807, and provide an illuminating account of court life on the eve of the Revolution.

Charles-Guillaume-Louis, his wife, and brother-in-law, were all painted by Nattier, and the latter's portrait was exhibited at the Salon of 1746 (no. 69). Pierre de Nolhac at the time of his 1910 monograph on the artist read the date on the present work as 1734, and believed that the companion portrait of the sitter's wife had been painted at the same time. It is probable that the pair of portraits were comissioned to commemorate the couple's marriage in the previous year. Following their death without issue the portraits passed into the collection of Charles-Guillaume-Louis's first cousin, Victor-François de Broglie, the future Maréchal duc de Broglie.

Pierre de Nolhac describes the present picture in the following terms: 'C'est un étrange personnage que le mari, au regard aigu et bizarre; la tête est hardiment posée sur un long cou, que hausse la blanche cravate. La cuirasse damasquinée qui enserre le buste est de la meilleure facture de Nattier, en ce genre de morceau où il excelle'.