This portrait by Gottfried Lindauer (1839-1926) depicts the Maori poi dancer Terewai Horomona. It was commissioned by the New Zealand lawyer and naturalist Walter Buller (1838-1906), along with twelve other paintings, to be exhibited at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition held at South Kensington, London in 1886. Apparently, so admired by the Prince of Wales on his tour of the exhibition, it was promptly gifted to him by Buller. The sitter has been identified as the daughter of Arthur Elkington (1839-67), an Officer of the 91st Argyllshire regiment of Foot, who was commissioned in 1859 and later Deputy Commissionary-General in New Zealand. He married a young Maori woman, Marara Horomona in Wellington in 1865, which precluded him from serving further in the British Army. Terewai Grace Horomona was born in 1867.

Terewai is engaged in a traditional Maori poi dance. In her left hand she holds a poi, made from bulrush wrapped in flax and attached to a long string. The poi is rhythmically swung against her right hand in time to music. Dances were also performed with poi's in each hand. The sitter wears a white blouse and black skirt with a colourful waistband; the clematis wreath in her hair may represent spring. A sense of animation is brought to the portrait by her engaging expression, rather than any feeling of movement in her body or arms.

Lindauer was born in Pilsen, in the Czech Republic and studied at the Vienna Academy under Leopold Kupelwieser and Josef von Fűhrich. They were influenced by the Nazarenes and it was here that Lindauer developed the technique of building up successive layers of thin paint to give a distinctive translucency to his paintings. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1873.