Sir Francis Prujean (1593–1666) was a distinguished physician whose work was recorded in the famous diaries of Samual Pepys and John Evelyn. Pepys describes how Prujean acquired the great honour of attending Queen Catherine in a severe attack of spotted fever, and that the Queen’s recovery was due to a cordial prescribed by him at a critical moment, ‘which in her despair did give her rest and brought her to some hopes of recovery’. Prujean was knighted by Charles II in 1661, and two years later cured Queen Caroline of typhus. He held many positions at the Royal College of Physicians, London, including treasurer, registrar and president from 1650 to 1654.

The portrait is attributed to the English painter Robert Streater, because it is similar in style to another portrait of Prujean by Streater which belonged to St Thomas’s Hospital, London, and which was destroyed in the Second World War.