Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was the son of Leopold II (1747-1792), Holy Roman Emperor 1790-1792 and his consort, Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, whose bust statue appears in the present portrait. Born in Florence, Ferdinand became Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1790 on his father's election as Emperor. In 1790 he married Princess Luisa of Naples and Sicily, daughter of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies (1751-1825) and Maria Carolina of Austria (1752-1814), a sister of Queen Marie Antoinette of France.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Aranjuez in 1801 Ferdinand was forced out of Florence by Napoleon to make way for the Kingdom of Etruria but was awarded the Dukedom and Electorate of Salzburg as compensation for the loss of power in Tuscany. Ferdinand and his family went into exile and lived in Vienna. The couple had six children but the two eldest, Archduke Francis Leopold and Archduchess Caroline Ferdinanda, who appear in the present portrait, died aged six and nine. Ferdinand was therefore succeeded by his second son, Leopold II (1797-1870) in 1824 after the restoration as Grand-Duke of Tuscany.
A portrait miniature on ivory of Princess Luisa of Naples and her young children, Archduke Francis Leopold and Archduchess Caroline Ferdinanda, seated in a landscape is illustrated in colour in R. Keil, Die Porträtminiaturen des Hauses Habsburg, Vienna, 1999, p. 131, no. 255.