Charlotte Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch, Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria from 1841 to 1846, was, thought by the Queen to be 'an agreeable, sensible, clever little person' (RA QVJ: 18 March 1845). The Queen agreed to stand as godmother to her daughter, Victoria Alexandrine, at her christening in the chapel at Buckingham Palace on 17 April 1845. Thorburn's double portrait, presented to Queen Victoria after the Duchess's departure from office, is a sympathetic portrayal of the Duchess and her daughter from an arresting and unusually low viewpoint. It was not the only occasion on which she had been painted in miniature by Thorburn, as a full-length miniature of 'The Duchess of Buccleuch, the Lady Victoria Scott, the Lady Georgina Balfour and Lord Charles Scott' by Thorburn was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1846 (no. 868). The Buccleuchs were significant patrons of Thorburn: it was with the support of the Duke of Buccleuch that Thorburn had been able to move to London from Edinburgh in 1836 to study at the Royal Academy Schools.

Charlotte Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, daughter of Thomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath, and Isabella, daughter of George Byng, 4th Viscount Torrington, married in 1829 Walter Francis Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch. Her daughter Victoria Alexandrine, born on 20 November 1844, married firstly, in 1865, Schomberg Henry Kerr, 9th Marquess of Lothian, by whom she had nine children, and secondly, in 1903, Bertram Talbot. She died aged ninety-three in 1938.