The sitter is recognizably the same as in the famous portrait of Mrs Jens Wolff (also spelt Wolfe and Wolffe) begun by Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1803, though not finished until 1815 (Art Institute, Chicago; see K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1989, pp.286-7, no.828a, illustrated colour pl.73), though even closer in the style of her hair to the smaller oval portrait at Croft Castle (op.cit., p.287, no.838b, illustrated). Downman seems to have done portraits of the Wolff family, Danish merchants and consuls in London, concentrated in three periods. There are three sketches of Georg, Jens's father, from 1773. In 1778 he did another of Georg, together with his brother Ernest, his two daughters, Elizabeth and Matilda, and his only son Jens. For the drawings in the Butleigh Court Sketchbooks now in the British Museum see G.C. Williamson, John Downman, A.R.A., 1907, pp.Iii, Ivi. In addition there is a related drawing of Mrs Jens Wolff in black chalk and stump, 11¾ x 9¼in., in the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford; a signed drawing of Ernest Wolff was formerly in the E.M. Hodgkins collection.
Mrs Jens Wolff (1771-1829) was the third daughter of Norton Hutchinson of Woodhall Park, Hertfordshire. She married Jens Wolff of Sherwood Lodge, Battersea in 1792 but they separated in 1810. Her house became a haunt of artists and writers and her death is said to have precipitated that of Sir Thomas Lawrence six months later.