It was painted a few months before the cardinal's death, in 1642, and is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg.

[1] The painting originally consisted of at least two portraits of Richelieu: right profile and frontal.

The frontal portrait was cut off at some point and lost; X-ray examinations of the painting have revealed that it has once existed and that the remaining trace has been concealed by an added border.

Conversely, it is not established if a left profile portrait on the same canvas had once existed as well.

The Strasbourg version (as a double or maybe triple portrait) then served as the basis for the Triple Portrait of Cardinal de Richelieu, which was mostly painted by Champaigne's workshop, and is considered artistically inferior.