Louise Amour Marie de Bouillé, the wife of the French ambassador in Madrid, is registered as a copyist at the Museo del Prado from November 1871 onwards. It must have been around then that she was portrayed by Federico de Madrazo in this delicate work, half-way between a life sketch and a small portrait, where the aristocrat is shown painting. Of Caribbean Creole descent, Louise was a multifaceted and socially very active woman with an interest in both painting and photography, but she never took up these activities professionally.

G. Navarro, Carlos, Invitadas. Fragmentos sobre mujeres, ideología y artes plásticas en España (1833-1931), Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2020, p.294 nº 70