Richard, Emily and Florence Maude Alldridge (presumably a brother and two sisters) were painters of portraits and figure subjects. They all lived at Old Charlton in Kent in the 1860s, and the Misses Alldridge continued to live there although Richard had moved to London by 1869. He showed six pictures at the Royal Academy (1866-77), and two at Suffolk Street (1867, 1873-4), where Emily and Florence also exhibited. In addition, they supported the Dudley Gallery, and it was there that this picture appeared in 1868.

Located in the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and specialising in watercolours, the Dudley had opened in 1865, and anticipated the Grosvenor Gallery (launched 1877) as a forum for exponents of the emerging cult of Aestheticism. Burne-Jones himself showed there occasionally in the early 1870s, but its keenest supporters were his associates and followers - artists such as Simeon Solomon, Walter Crane, Edward Clifford, Robert Bateman, and H.E. Wooldridge. The Ministering Angel is very much a 'Dudley' picture in the sense that it adopts the idiom that these artists were exploring, and it would be interesting to know if Alldridge, a mysterious figure in any case, was in touch with their circle.

Alldridge's work is rare; only one example, a portrait of Lizzie Alldridge (another sister?) dated 1887, appears in his Witt Library file. file.