The eighty-year old Duchess is shown with head and shoulders facing half-left. She wears black mourning dress with white lace about her neck clasped by a jewelled diamond and pearl drop brooch, and a black cap edged with white lace. She is seated in a red upholstered wing chair.
The portrait was painted for Queen Victoria, who was anxious that the Duchess should be painted. In her Journal, 30 June 1877, the Queen wrote that Von Angeli had painted 'a splendid head' of the Duchess for her, and to the Crown Princess she wrote on 2 July that the old lady 'suffering but alive to everything', had been delighted with Von Angeli. The artist had been paid ?157 10s on 18 May for the portrait. The frame is by Brooks, the portrait is signed and dated 'H v Angeli 1877' and is inscribed on the back with the sitter's age, eighty.