Giuseppe Grisoni was born in Mons, in the Spanish Netherlands, in 1699, to an Italian family, and his career unfolded across multiple European courts and cultural centers, making him a quintessentially cosmopolitan figure of the early eighteenth century. He received his artistic training in Florence, where he absorbed the rich tradition of Florentine portraiture and absorbed the influence of the Grand Ducal court's taste for ceremonial imagery. His skill as a portrait painter brought him to the attention of aristocratic and royal patrons across Europe.

Grisoni spent a formative period in England, where he worked alongside and in competition with other continental painters seeking the patronage of the British nobility. His portraits from this period reflect the prevailing taste for elegant, formally posed likenesses that combined Baroque grandeur with a growing interest in the more relaxed sensibility that would define Georgian portraiture. His ability to flatter sitters while maintaining a convincing sense of individual character earned him steady commissions.

He later returned to Italy and eventually settled in Rome, where he was active as a portrait specialist catering to the international community of grand tourists, diplomats, and ecclesiastical patrons. The cosmopolitan character of Roman society in this period suited Grisoni's multilingual, multi-cultural background perfectly, and he continued to work productively until late in his career. He died in Rome in 1769.

Grisoni occupies an interesting transitional position in the history of eighteenth-century European portraiture, bridging the late Baroque formality of the previous century with the lighter, more naturalistic approach that the Rococo era was beginning to favor. Though not among the most famous names of his generation, his career illustrates the remarkable mobility of artists during the Enlightenment period and the genuinely pan-European character of elite visual culture at the time.