The portrait depicts Princess Ekaterina Vasilyevna Saltykova, née Dolgorukaya (1789–1862), daughter of Prince Vasili Vasilyevich Dolgorukov and Princess Ekaterina Feodorovna, née Baryatinskaya, who in 1814 married Prince Sergei Nikolaievich Saltykov (1776–1828), the Privy Councillor.

From June 22 1808 Princess Saltykova was Chamber Lady at the Imperial Russian Court, from 1835 Lady-in-Waiting at the Court of Tsarevich Alexander (II) and from 1855 Lady-in-Waiting at the Court of Tsaritsa Maria Alexandrovna. In 1824 Princess Saltykova received the order of St. Catherine of the 2nd degree, and in 1856 she received the Order of St. Catherine of the 1st degree. After her death she was burried in St. Petersburg in the Church of St. Catherine, which is located between the Bolshaya and Malaya Okhta.

The French painter Robert Lefevre portrayed Princess Saltykova twice, respectively in 1812 and 1821. The first portrait is owned by The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and the second belongs to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The Historical Museum in Moscow furthermore owns a self-portrait of Princess Saltykova.

The present portrait is the earliest in the iconography of Princess Saltykova, and she is portrayed by the French painter Jean-François Asselin. He moved to Germany after the French Revolution and studied 1799–1801 in Dresden, whereupon he returned to France. Later he travelled to St. Petersburg, where he painted the present portrait, which is dated 1808 and painted just before Princess Saltykova became a Chamber Lady, and then wore the connected dress code.

The present portrait is reproduced in Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich's edition of “Russian Portraits of the XVIII and XIX centuries”, St. Petersburg 1906, no. 111, (Collection of Her Highness Princess A. S. Saltykova in St. Petersburg), here mentioned as the portrait of an unknown artist.

Yuri Epatko, the State Russian Museum.