Jørgen Balthazar Winterfeldt (1732-1821) started as a cadet in the Danish Navy in 1743 and rose to the rank of admiral in 1804. As the painting shows him with rank insignia as full admiral, it must have been made after that date. At the 2005 auction, the painting was attributed to the Danish/Hungarian painter Johan Jacob Stunder. This attribution seems rather unlikely, as Stunder went to Italy in 1784, and then worked in Vienna and later in Hungary, where he married in 1797 and died in 1811. The only proven connection is that Stunder painted a portrait of Winterfeldt's father-in-law, the naval officer C. F. le Sage de Fontenay in 1784.