Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baroness of Staël-Holstein, known as Madame de Staël, was a prolific French writer of works of philosophy, politics and literary criticism, as well as of novels. She was a major figure in the political and literary relations of revolutionary Europe. The daughter of Jacques Necker, Swiss finance minister to Louis XVI, she was educated initially by her mother, and played a central role in French intellectual life for over three decades. Her salons were described by historian Christopher Herold as ‘a literary and dramatic workshop, a permanent seminar and debating club, a laboratory of ideas, and a Circean menagerie’. Rejecting a proposed match with William Pitt the Younger, she married Eric-Magnus, Baron Staël von Holstein (1749–1802), Swedish ambassador to the court of Louis XVI, in 1786, but had a number of passionate affairs. In 1792, she fled Paris, going first to Geneva and from January to May 1793, she lived in England at Juniper Hall in Surrey. She was banned from Paris by Napoleon after the publication of her novel Delphine, which is situated in revolutionary Paris, and tells the story of an independent-minded young widow who challenges public opinion. Another study, De l'Allemagne (1810, On Germany), a vast survey of Germany's society and philosophic currents, was banned in France (Napoleon ordered its plates to be destroyed and the edition reduced to pulp), but published in London in 1813. It had a huge impact, in both France and England, on views of contemporary German thought and literature.

This miniature depicts the sitter towards the end of her life, when she was confined to her house in Paris due to illness.

Joseph Bouton (1768-1823) was born in Cadiz in Spain and was appointed miniature and court painter to Carlos IV. He exhibited his work in Paris from 1790 to 1803 and in London from 1816 to 1819, including several royal portraits and one of Princess Charlotte of Wales.

The miniature is signed on the left: Bouton.