The identity of the sitter is, according to family tradition, the Bruges official Charles-Bernardin-Ghislain Coppieters-Stochove (1774-1864). He was a member for Bruges of the Congrès national, vice-president of the Chambre des représantants and president of the tribunal de première instance. In 1813 Coppieters aged 39, which accords well with the age of the sitter in this drawing. A lithograph portrait of Coppieters by the Bruges artist Charles Baugniet shows some similarities. No visit to Rome is recorded.

The drawing is one of the relatively few portraits of sitters outside Ingres' immediate circle before Napoleon's fall in 1814. The sitter, as a Belgian, was free to visit Italy, which had been out of bounds for English travellers since the 1790s. The portrait is drawn on fine quality English wove paper, whose smoothness allowed Ingres to draw, with delicate modulations of pressure, the fall of light on the sitter's face