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The nine-year-old Petronella was the daughter of the merchant Joost Pietersz Elias, and his first wife, Rebecca Spiegel, who was a first cousin of Bol's wife, Elisabeth Dell.
Basket of fruit often features in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century art as allusion to fertility which explain their appearance in painting of children, as in Jacob Willemsz Delff's portrait of a two-year-old boy. The motif of fruit suggests that the child is the product of a fruitful marriage. Flowers, like the garland in Petronella's hair, suggest the innocence of youth.
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