Mangkunegara VII was head of one of the four royal families in Central Java from 1916 to 1944. The island was part of the Dutch East Indies at the time, now Indonesia.

The Dutch East Indies was a colony of the Netherlands. That meant the country was under Dutch rule. But the Mangkunegara did have limited powers in his principality. For example, he encouraged Javanese culture and science, in order to modernise Java. Isaac Israels visited the Mangkunegara at his palace in 1921, where he painted him, employing rapid brushwork. The broad strokes of pink and blue dance on the canvas. This was a bold and unusual step, as portraits of monarchs tended to be painted in much finer detail.