Rudolphe Ernst (1854-1932) exhibited his works at the Salon de la Société des Artistes Français for over sixty years. In 1876 he settled in France, and exhibited regularly. After initially concentrating on genre scenes and portraits such as this one of the Crown Prince of Austria, Ernst turned in 1885 to Orientalist subjects, and was further inspired by journeys to Spain, Morocco and Tunis in the second half of the 1880s. He also went to Istanbul and Egypt around 1890. His works include scenes within mosques and harems, and aspects of female domestic life in the east. Although these subjects became popular among the Austrian school of Orientalists, Ernst and his companion Ludwig Deutsch were foremost in bringing them to the attention of the public. In 1900 Ernst moved from Paris to Fontenay-aux-Roses in the suburbs, where he lived the rest of his life in tranquillity and relative solitude.

Rudolf, Archduke of Austria and Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary and Bohemia (1858-1889), was the son and heir-apparent of Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and his wife and Empress-Queen consort, Elisabeth of Bavaria. In 1881 he married Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, a daughter of King Leopold II of the Belgians. By the time their only child, the Archduchess Elisabeth, was born in September 1883, their relationship was severely strained. The Emperor forbade a divorce, and Rudolf had many affairs. He died, apparently in a suicide pact with his mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera, at his Mayerling hunting lodge in 1889.