Archduchess Auguste Ferdinande of Austria was the only daughter of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his first wife, Maria Anna of Saxony to survive to adulthood. She married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, who later became the Prince Regent of Bavaria after her death.

Leopold II was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1824 to 1859. He married twice; first to Maria Anna of Saxony, and after her death in 1832, to Maria Antonia of the Two-Sicilies. By the latter, he begat his eventual successor, Ferdinand. Leopold was recognised contemporarily as a liberal monarch, authorising the Tuscan Constitution of 1848, and allowing a degree of press freedom.