Nicolas Robert, peintre ordinaire du Roy pour la miniature, was trained in Italy. On his return to France, the series of flowers, La Guirlande de Julie, painted for the Duc Montausier for presentation to Mademoiselle Julie d'Agennes, brought him renown. He then entered the service of Gaston d'Orléans, brother of King Louis XIII for whom he started his series of drawings on vellum. On the death of the Duc, Colbert secured his services for the young King Louis XIV. Robert produced more than seven hundred velins for the King, now at the Bibliothèque du Musée d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. Robert's commitments for the King did not stop him from painting for other patrons such as Colbert, for whom he drew another series of velins now in the Albertina.

Robert's work can be identified by the size and type of the gold borders framing his velins. Each Peintre de Roi had his own style of gold border and the present drawing has identical framing lines to those in the velins of the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle. The quality of the vellum used by the artist is also the same. Ornithological subjects are rare in the work of the artist and represented only in the series of velins in the Musée d'Histoire Naturelle and in that from the Jeanson Collection