The sitter's costume recalls the court dress of Marie de Medici (1573–1642) as recorded by Rubens in the series of paintings now in the Louvre which Fragonard is known to have studied. Around and perhaps after 1769, Fragonard executed ten three-quarter length portraits of men in theatrical costume, for which the identity of some of the sitters is known. A Woman with a Dog and three other female subjects are the same size and form a related group. Some writers have mistakenly identified the subject of this portrait as the artist's aunt or sister.

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