Jean-Philippe d'Orléans was the illegitimate son of Philippe d'Orléans, Regent de France and Mademoiselle Serr, later Comtesse d'Argenton, who was lady in waiting to the Regent's mother, the Princess Palatine. Recognised in 1706 as the Regent's son, he was made general of the gallows in 1716 and grand prieur of the order of Malta in 1719 when the Chevalier de Vendome resigned. He took his vows in Malta in the same year, receiving the benefit of the Abbey of Hautvilliers near Rheims from 1721. He was a great patron of Nattier, whom he requested to continue the gallery of portraits of great men of the Temple which had been begun by Raoux.

Georges Wildenstein, loc. cit., suggests that a bust length portrait of the Grand Prieur exhibited by Nattier at the Salon of 1745 may be the same picture that was included in Nattier's posthumous sale in Paris, 27 June 1763, as 'Une esquisse representant le portrait de M. le Chevalier d'Orléans en buste et cuirasse', since Nattier is recorded as having bought back his pictures from the Temple when the Prince de Conti, Jean-Philippe d'Orléans' successor as Grand Prieur, sold all his predecessor's purchases. Mr. Wildenstein proposes as that picture a portrait dated 1739 in the Louvre. However it has never been established with any certainty that the Louvre picture represents Jean- Philippe d'Orléans and it has been suggested that the present picture may be the missing portrait exhibited in 1745