This portrait dates from 1756, the year the artist moved to Zerbst to work on a gallery of beauties for Catherine II’s mother. The sitter herself was in Russia, but Lisiewska had painted her before. It is possible that the painting was originally smaller, showing only Catherine, and was later expanded into a double portrait with her husband, Peter III. The boy is assumed to be a Kalmyk servant mentioned in the empress’s memoirs.