In the early years of the 19th century, the roughly thirty-year-old François Gérard, a pupil of Jacques-Louis David, was at the height of his career. His position as one of the most admired and sought-after portraitists in Paris was cemented by his portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul, his wife Josephine and his mother Létis Bonaparte. The records kept by the artist make it possible to reconstruct a long list of representatives of the European elite who commissioned portraits from him. The list of commissions was abundant, even in spite of the prices set by the artist, already considered colossal at the time - for a full-length portrait, he reportedly demanded between 10,000 and 12,000 francs, which was the equivalent of around 3,000 grams of pure gold. However, this was not enough to deter the many applicants from the imperial court or the European aristocracy, for whom owning a painting by the most fashionable painter in the artistic capital of the time was a sign of prestige.

In a list of Gérard's works, compiled from his own notes, Andrzej Ryszkiewicz found seven names of Polish personalities (although the researcher stipulated that the number was in fact higher), and chronologically the first among them was a portrait of Catherine Joanna Gabrielle Starzeńska (1782-1862). It was recorded under the date 1804, although it is likely that work on it had already begun the previous year. It is very likely that the painter and his future model met at the then-famous salon Madame Récamier, where he visited regularly as a young star of French art, while she was soon recognised as a conqueror of men's hearts. Catherine Starzeńska, by then known as La Belle Gabrielle, arrived in Paris in 1803 with her husband Xavier Starzeński. His ichthyological studies were said to have aroused Napoleon's interest, but it was she who gained instant fame in influential circles for her natural charm, lively temperament and, above all, her uncommon beauty. Franz Xavier Prek, whose brother, incidentally, became one of her lovers many years later, described her in his diary with the words: "she was of good height, of beautiful, handsome figure, white body, oval face, black eyes, large, magnificent, delightful, eyebrows a little round, mouth even, teeth remarkably white. She possessed a beauty that can rarely be seen, so much so that strangers admired her". Endowed with these qualities, the woman led a life full of amorous adventures and social scandals in Paris. Allegedly, one of them eventually became the reason why the couple had to leave France - an affair between Starzeńska and Eugène de Beauharnais, Josephine's son and Napoleon's stepson, did not please his mother, who decided to suggest she leave. At the end of 1804, the Starzeńskis returned to Lviv.

However, in a full-scale portrait completed before their departure from Paris, Gérard depicted Catherine Starzeńska not so much as a salon lioness, winning the hearts of successive lovers, but as an artist surrendering to the power of inspiration. She is shown in a relaxed pose, against a landscape, resting by a rock during a break in her walk. Typical of the artist's Neoclassical style, manifested above all in the precision and elegance of the drawing, the smooth texture and the compositional arrangement based on crossing diagonals, in this work are juxtaposed with sentimental or even proto-Romantic elements. The model's outfit alone is meant to emphasise her creative, poetic personality. It is maintained in the 'troubadour style', characteristic of the era, alluding to the romanticising vision of the Middle Ages and popularised in France by Josephine. Starzeńska is dressed in a dark velvet redingot (a type of coat) with shoulder-buff sleeves, a 'Medici' lace collar and cuffs finished with typical 'teeth'. Nonchalantly thrown on the rock beside her are her cashmere shawl and straw hat. The lyre held in her right hand is meant to be a symbol of the search for artistic inspiration, with which the woman's thoughtful gaze corresponds. The melancholic mood is also emphasised by the "wild" northern landscape - with a rushing stream at the lady's feet, a mighty castle rising on a spruce-covered hill and heavy, almost stormy clouds. Gérard's painting as a whole embodies not so much the exquisite gallantry typical of other Empire portraits, but precisely the intensity of poetic feeling.

The portrait of Katarzyna Starzeńska quite quickly found its way into the Lviv collection. As early as 1827, Henryk Lubomirski planned to send it from Vienna to the Lubomirski Museum, which was just being established. It is not clear, however, whether the painting was his property at the time or whether he merely acted as an intermediary between the institution and the Starzeński family. In any case, the transfer did not ultimately take place at that time due to the poor technical condition of the work. According to surviving correspondence, it is known that the frame was broken and there were apparently two large tears in the canvas itself. Ultimately, the painting did not reach Lviv until 1838, becoming a decoration of that collection. It is worth noting that the author's own reduced version of this portrait is in the collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, while the oil sketch of the composition remained in the painter's workshop, from where it found its way to the collection at Versailles.