Maria Cosway (Florence 1759-1838 Lodi)

Maria Cosway was elected to the Accademia del Disegno, Florence in 1778 and exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, between 1781 and 1801. Stylistically, Cosway's main influences were Henry Fuseli and Angelica Kauffman; after the departure of the latter for Italy in 1781, Cosway became one of the foremost female artists exhibiting publicly in London. In 1812, she founded a Collegio delle Dame Inglesi in Lodi and was made a baroness by Francis I, Emperor of Austria, in 1834.

Stephen Lloyd dated the present work to the 1780s at the time of the 2003.