The painting was ordered by King James II when he met Shen Fu-Tsung during his visit to England in 1685.

[1][2] The king was so delighted by this visit that he commissioned the portrait, and had it hung in his bedroom.

Shen also visited Oxford, where he helped catalogue the Bodleian Library's collection of Chinese books.

[3] Shen left China in 1681 with Philippe Couplet SJ for a tour of Europe, where Couplet planned to promote the Jesuit's China Mission and plead the Jesuit cause before Pope Innocent XI.

Being a young Jesuit candidate, Shen's meeting with the English king was only possible during a brief period in post-Reformation English history, when the king was a Roman Catholic and Jesuits were received at court.