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 is clearly by the same hand as Dixon's miniature of Princess Helena (420329) and painted as a pair with it, in early 1860. Queen Victoria sent these two miniatures and one of Princess Beatrice (422018) to her daughter, the Crown Princess, for inspection early in 1860, although she held back the miniatures of Princess Helena and Princess Louise ' – as I want the background of the latter to be altered 1st'. The altered miniature of Princess Louise received the Crown Princess's wholehearted approval: 'Lilly's [i.e. Louise's] is perfection. It does one good to look at that sweet lovely face. Miss Dickson has caught her expression so exactly, so gentle, and rather melancholy, but merriment and mischief in the corners of her eyes; her head and neck are too lovely & her figure so graceful'.

Inscribed on the reverse in ink: Princess / Louise / painted by / Miss Dickson / in 1860.