Fernando de Valdés y Llanos was from the family of the Counts of Toreno. He was appointed Bishop of Tereul in 1625, Bishop Elect of León in 1632, and in 1633 Archbishop of Granada and President of the Council of Castille, a post comparable to that of Lord Chancellor which prevented him from leaving Madrid. He died in 1639.

It is probable that this is a posthumous portrait, a work of the early 1640s.