Raised amid the fabulous wealth passed down to her parents from her great-grandfather Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gertrude Vanderbilt became allied to yet another great fortune in 1896 when she married financier Harry Payne Whitney. Following her marriage, she increasingly divided her time between pursuing her own career as a sculptor and offering patronage to less financially secure artists. By 1910, she had established the Whitney Studio Club, which provided exhibition space for beginning painters and sculptors. Out of that enterprise came the Whitney Museum of American Art, which opened its doors in 1931.

Among the many artists that Whitney encouraged was sculptor Jo Davidson, and in about 1906, she became one of the first buyers of his work. Ten years later, she helped him set up a studio in New York and soon thereafter commissioned him to make this portrait of her.