Lady Somers-Cocks was a Maid of Honour to Queen Victoria from almost the beginning of her reign until June 1849, when she resigned to marry Charles Courtenay, Resident Chaplain to the Queen and later Canon of Windsor.

Sir William Ross was a highly successful miniature painter, appointed Miniature Painter to the Queen in December 1837 and knighted in 1842. Queen Victoria particularly admired Ross's ability to catch a likeness, and in addition to miniatures also commissioned many independent watercolours and drawings of her own children and her relations and their offspring. This is the only drawing of a member of her court by Ross.