Guglielmo Faija's miniature shows the Grand Duchess Constantine wearing a white day dress and a large straw bonnet tied with a broad yellow ribbon. It is a bust-length copy taken from Franz Xaver Winterhalter's three-quarter-length oil portrait of the Grand Duchess dating from 1848 (404524: Royal Collection). The original shows her standing in a landscape probably intended to represent Boissière near Geneva, where she lived a retired life following her divorce in 1820 from the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia. Her unhappy life had taken a toll on her appearance. By 1841, her niece, Princess Feodora reported to her half-sister, Queen Victoria: 'I went to see Mama and Aunt Julia, who I find very much changed, she looks now an old woman, such a pity, for she was so lovely once' (RA VIC/Y 36/43).

Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, third daughter of Francis Anthony, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorff married, in 1796, Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, second son of Emperor Paul I of Russia. She took the name Anna Feodorovna on her marriage.