Annie Dixon was born in Horncastle in 1817, and worked as a portrait miniaturist in Hull, the Isle of Wight and London until the last decade of the nineteenth century. From 1859, when she undertook her first royal commission (420351), she enjoyed great favour with Queen Victoria, partly on account of her skill in painting children, but also undoubtedly because of her pleasingly moderate prices. Her skill was sufficient for her to sustain a long and successful career in miniature painting at a time when many other practitioners suffered from the competition posed by the new art of photography.

This miniature of Princess Helena Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein was painted in the same year and probably at the same time as Dixon's minature of her mother (420306). The lustrous green foliage encircling the sitter's head is an attractive innovation by the artist.

Princess Helena Victoria was the third child of Princess Helena (third daughter of Queen Victoria) and Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. She lived for many years with her younger sister, Princess Marie-Louise, and died in London in 1948.