Little is known about the painting's origins, and currently the most credited hypothesis is that it would portray Carlo de' Medici, an illegitimate son of Cosimo de' Medici the Elder and a Circassian concubine, as hinted by the subject's intense blue eyes.
The work has been dated from 1459-1460, when Mantegna arrived in Mantua and was commissioned numerous official portraits (the subject has been also identified as Ludovico Gonzaga, bishop of Mantua), and 1466, when the painter perhaps travelled to Florence.