Clifford was a follower of Burne-Jones who specialised in portraits of the aristocracy, generally painting life-sized bust-length likenesses in watercolour; a portrait of Lord Seafield (1882) was sold in these Rooms on 5 March 1993, lot 38. Lady Cowper, like so many of his sitters, belonged to the cultured circle of the 'Souls', although it was her neice, Lady Desborough, who dominated that group. Born Katrine Cecilia Compton, eldest daughter of the 4th Marquess of Northampton, she married Francis Thomas de Grey, 7th Earl Cowper (1834-1905) in 1870, five years before the portrait was painted. They had a London house in St James's Square and vast estates, their main country houses being Panshanger in Hertfordshire, with its great collection of pictures, and Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, a 'château' noted for its formal gardens in the style of Le Notre. Lord Cowper was a liberal politician who served as Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland 1880-82. His wife was renowned as a hostess, and claimed to have invented that most civilised of country house entertainments, the Saturday-to-Monday visit. She died childless in 1913, bequeathing Panshanger to Lady Desborough.

Lady Cowper was also painted by E.J. Poynter, this portrait being reproduced in Jane Abdy and Charlotte Gere, The Souls, 1984, p. 171. Lord Cowper was painted by G.F. Watts and Leighton, who executed portraits of six members of the Cowper family in the early 1860s (see L. and R. Ormond, Lord Leighton, 1975, p. 153, nos. 72-77)