The arrival of a 5-year-old African albino slave, Mapondé from Angola, in Paris in January 1743 created a sensation. The news reached Carl Gustaf Tessin, who had left the city six months earlier. Through his friend, the connoisseur Count de Gaylus, he managed to commission this portrait painted by Perronneau. Tessin later donated it anonymously to Queen Lovisa Ulrika.