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Madame Récamier gave François Gérard's portrait of her to her admirer Prince Augustus of Prussia, a nephew of Frederick II, who had met the French beauty at the salon of Madame de Staël. For state reasons a marriage was impossible, but in the painting Madame Récamier was ever present in the palace which Schinkel furnished for the Prince in 1817. We can see this from the portrait painted of the Prince by the Berlin artist Franz Krüger.
In his painting-within-a-painting, Krüger has left us evidence of the difference in painting styles between Paris and Berlin. After the death of the Prince the portrait was returned to Madame Récamier.
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