Anne Seymour Damer (1749-1828) trained under Ceracchi and John Bacon R.A. In 1767 she married John Damer, eldest son of Lord Milton, who committed suicide in 1776. After his death, Damer, under the encouragement of Horace Walpole, devoted herself entirely to sculpture, and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1784 to 1818. Damer specialised in portrait busts, though she is perhaps best known now for her heads of the Rivers Thame and Isis for Henley Bridge of 1785, and her 'Two Dogs' at Goodwood, Sussex. Damer's fame was partly due to her social position and sex, but nevertheless, her oeuvre is marked by an elegant classicism and confident modelling. The present delicate portrait is a rare example of Damer's work in bronze, finely chiselled and freshly conceived.
Like many of Damer's sitters, Mary Berry (1763-1852) was an acquaintance, and above all, also shared Horace Walpole's affection. Walpole bequeathed his celebrated Strawberry Hill to Damer and the house and garden of Little Strawberry Hill to Mary Berry and her sister. Berry was an author, her fame however, appears to have been established not entirely by her talent, but rather by the attention Walpole, alias "Horace Fondlewives", lavished upon his "Suavissima Maria" and her sister. Damer executed a white marble bust of Mary Berry for Walpole, who considered it his most precious possession. The present bust appears to be a bronze cast of this sophisticated and classicising rendering of a delicate-featured maiden.