Louise Renée de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth and Aubigny (1649-1734) first worked in the household of Henrietta Anne Stuart, Duchess of Orléans. In 1670 she accompanied the Duchess of Orléans on a visit to see her brother, Charles II, at Dover. Shortly after the sudden and suspicious death of the duchess, Louise de Kérouaille was appointed lady-in-waiting to the queen in England, Catherine of Braganza. During this appointment she became mistress to Charles II and bore him a son, Charles, who became the Duke of Richmond in 1675. She was not popular in England, but received the full support of the French envoy on the understanding that she should serve the interests of her native sovereign and develop England's relations with France. Not long after the death of Charles II she returned to France and fell into debt after losing the generous pensions and grants awarded by the king.
A miniature of the present sitter by the same artist is included in D. Foskett, A Dictionary of British Miniature Painters, London, 1972, II, p. 88, illustrated no. 774, pl. 310 and also in D. Foskett's exhibition catalogue, Samuel Cooper and his contemporaries, London, National Portrait Gallery, 1974, no. 192, illustrated p. 101. A further example is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (see J. Murdoch, Seventeenth-century English Miniatures in the Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1997, illustrated p. 242, no. 140).