Elizabeth Lewis was born in 1755, the daughter of David and Mary Lewis of Malvern Hall, Warwickshire. In 1795 she married the Rev. Sir Herbert Croft, of Croft Castle, Herefordshire, as his second wife, but later separated from him. She died after a long and protracted illness in 1815, and was buried at Yardley, Birmingham, the burial place of the Greswolde family. Sir Herbert, who originally studied law, later entered the Church and became Vicar of Prittlewell, Essex, in 1787. He wrote a large number of books, including works on Thomas Chatterton, and devoted 12 years to writing a new Dictionary, which was never finished. He died in 1816 in Paris, having been a prisoner of war in France since 1801.

Elizabeth's sisters, Magdalene and Anna Maria, married Lionel and Wilbraham Tollemache, who became 5th and 6th Earls of Dysart respectively; her brother was Henry Greswolde Lewis, friend and early patron of Sir John Soane, the architect. In 1800 Constable made his first visit to the Earl of Dysart's estate at Helmingham and made sketches of the Park (see Constable exhibition, 1991, no. 224). On August 1807, through a Mr Fermin, a solicitor in Dedham, Constable was given a letter of introduction to the 6th Earl of Dysart, and was commissioned to make copies of the family portraits at Malvern Hall; he worked on them until the end of the year. Henry Greswolde Lewis invited him to stay at Malvern Hall again in 1809 and over the next twenty years or so Lewis and the Dysarts became patrons of the artist, commissioning several paintings including views of Malvern Hall (National Museum of Havana, and Stirling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown)

This portrait was painted in 1807.