A portrait drawing of Professor Dame Ann Dowling; head and shoulders, turned three quarters to the right; the artist's monogram, and date, lower right.

Professor Dame Ann Dowling is a mechanical engineer whose work focusses on combustion, acoustics and vibration. She is President of the Royal Academy of Engineering and was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2016. Her portrait is drawn by Ben Sullivan, who studied at Edinburgh College of Art and won the BP Portrait Award in 2017.

The Order of Merit was founded on the Coronation of King Edward VII in 1902 and recognises exceptional contributions to the arts and sciences. The Order is restricted to 24 members, each of whom is personally appointed by Her Majesty The Queen. In 1907, King Edward VII initiated a tradition of commissioning portraits of members of the Order of Merit by the artist William Strang, whose coloured chalk drawings on buff or pale pink paper consciously echo the Holbein drawings in the Royal Collection. Sullivan's use of materials in this portrait of Dowling also place the drawing in this inherited tradition. The commissions fell into abeyance with the outbreak of the First World War, but the tradition was revived by The Queen in 1987. Portraits of newly appointed members of the Order of Merit continue to be commissioned and added to the Royal Collection.