Giulio Romano (1499?-1546) was an Italian painter, architect and designer. He was born in Rome and worked in Raphael's studio. His early style is very close to that of Raphael, and in some cases it is difficult to assess whether they are collaborative works or by Romano alone. When Raphael died in 1520, Romano completed a number of commissions that were left unfinished, including the Sala di Constantino, the largest of the Vatican Stanze. He had moved to Mantua by 1524, where he remained for the rest of his life, working for the Gonzaga court. Here he decorated in fresco the Palazzo Tè (1526-35) where his Sala dei Giganti (Room of the Giants), painted from floor to ceiling and uniting architecture, painting and stucco, gives the illusionistic impression that rocks and thunderbolts are being hurled down both on the Titans who tried to storm Mount Olympus, and on the viewer. He was one of the most famous painters of his day, and Shakespeare called him 'that rare Italian master, Julio Romano' (The Winter's Tale, V. ii). There are a number of drawings and paintings by Giulio Romano and his workshop in the Royal Collection.

This miniature is one of the collection of copies of 224 self-portraits by artists in the Uffizi Palace, Florence, that Lord Cowper, the art collector and patron, commissioned Giuseppe Macpherson (1726-1780) to paint. He presented the miniatures to King George III in two batches, in 1773 and 1786. Macpherson followed the original self-portraits quite closely, but copied only the head and shoulders. He inscribed the artists' names on the backs of the miniatures – several differ from those in the modern Uffizi catalogue, notably: Bazzi, Bellini, Campi, Annibale Carracci, Gabbiani, Masaccio, Metsys, Moroni, Pencz, Licinio, Schiavone and Spada. None of the miniatures is signed, apart from Macpherson's own self-portrait, which is inscribed: Giuseppe Macpherson / Autore della serie (Giuseppe Macpherson / Author of the series).Macpherson was born in Florence, the son of Donald Macpherson, a footman in the service of Alexander, 2nd Duke of Gordon. He was a pupil of Pompeo Batoni and painted miniatures and enamel portraits in Italy, France and Germany, finally settling in Florence. A James Macpherson is recorded in London and Paris in 1754 but it is not certain that this is the same person. He was described in 1776 as having a special talent for painting on enamel and as being 'almost the only painter in Europe who possesses this art to perfection'. He had a distinguished client list which included some of the crowned heads and dignitaries of Europe. In 1778, he was invited to add his own self-portrait to the famous painters in the grand duke's collection as it 'would do honour to Florence to enrich the collection with a work which shows that we still have some men of true merit' according to Giuseppe Pelli, director of the Uffizi at the time.