The art of engraving gemstones can be traced back to ancient Greece in the 8th century BC and earlier. Techniques passed down to the Egyptians and then to the Romans. There were major revivals of interest in engraved gems in Europe during the Byantine era, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and again in the 18th and 19th centuries. At each stage cameos and intaglios, these skillful carvings on a minute scale, were much prized and collected, sometimes as symbols of power mounted in jewelled settings, sometimes as small objects for private devotion or enjoyment.

The architect Inigo Jones (1573-1652), the subject of this intaglio, was inspired by the work of Andrea Palladio (1508-80), the great architect of Venice and the Veneto, whose designs for churches and villas drew on classical sources. Inigo Jones brought the principles of Renaissance architecture to Britain in the first quarter of the seventeenth century with buildings such as the Queen's House at Greenwich and the Banqueting House, Whitehall. He was a major influence on the architecture of the eighteenth century in Britain when taste in the arts in general echoed the style of Greek and Roman antiquity. Admired and celebrated nationally, he became a hero of the neo-classical movement and his portrait was in demand. Versions are found as paintings and sculptures, and a number of eighteenth century intaglio gem-engravings of Inigo Jones exist similar to this one. The original portrait from which these and many of the other likenesses of the architect depend is Anthony van Dyck's painting of c.1633, now in the Hermitage, St; Petersburg. This is thought to have been painted and then issued as an engraving as part of a series of portraits of famous artists of Van Dyck's time. The image, also known from a celebrated chalk drawing by Van Dyck in the collection of the Dukes of Bedford, was subsequently reproduced and disseminated through works by Wenceslas Hollar, Michael Rysbrack, William Hogarth and others. Edward Burch (1730-1814), gem-engraver, medallist, wax-modeller and miniaturist, has been suggested as the maker of this intaglio. Burch is considered to be one of the outstanding native British gem-engravers of the eighteenth century, and is known to worked on a series of portraits of worthies, including Shakespeare and Newton.