Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, is shown with her head almost in profile to the right, wearing a low-cut evening dress and pearl necklace, with a diamond brooch in her corsage.

The sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, in 1871 Louise married John, Marquess of Lorne, the heir to the Duke of Argyll, accompanying him to Ottowa in 1878 when he was appointed Governor General of Canada.

This portrait was painted for Queen Victoria, who was enraptured with it. On 24 July 1875 she wrote to the Crown Princess: 'I have now got Louise's here and I own it is most exquisite. It is wonderfully, marvellously like, and there is a depth of feeling in the eye and mouth which are Louise herself and (as with all Angeli's pictures) you can look at it quite close by as though it were enamel – which is really what the surface is like…Lorne's is very good too and equally characteristic.' Von Angeli was paid £150 for the portrait in 1875 and it was placed in the Queen's Drawing-Room at Osborne House.