Winifred Sandys was the eldest of the painter Frederick Sandys’s seven daughters and three sons. Taught by their father, all of the children became artists to some degree, but Winifred was the most successful, exhibiting work in pastels and watercolours and excelling at miniature painting. It was Winifred who supported the family through the sale of her pictures after their father died in 1904. After Winifred’s sister Gertrude (known as ‘Girlie’, the sitter in this picture and the next three) died in 1920, Winifred married Girlie’s widower, Lionel Crane, the son of the artist Walter Crane.