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The two paintings portray Agnolo Doni (1474-1539), a rich fabric merchant and prominent figure among the Florentine upper class, and his wife, noblewoman Maddalena Strozzi (1489-1540), who married on 31 January 1504. According to Vasari the works were commissioned to Raphael by Agnolo who also commissioned the round painting of the Holy Family, known as the Tondo Doni, to Michelangelo Buonarroti. Both portraits were painted en pendant and originally formed a diptych, held together by hinges that made it possible to look at the scenes painted on the backs. These are two episodes taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses, painted in monochrome by an anonymous colleague of the young Raphael.
In Vasari's period, the portraits were still in the family home in Corso Tintori and they remained with the Doni family until 1826, when Leopold II Grand Duke of Tuscany was able to buy them from the heirs and add them to the collection of paintings he was creating in the Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti. Since 5 June 2018, the Doni portraits have been displayed in the Uffizi Galleries alongside Michelangelo's Tondo Doni, hung on new supports that allow the stories on their reverse sides to be admired.
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