The Frenchman Tissot was a daring choice for this intimate portrait of the heiress wife of Chapple Gill, a wealthy Liverpool cotton broker. The setting is her mother’s house, Lower Lee, at Woolton near Liverpool. Her two children are Robert, aged two and Margaret, aged six. Tissot spent eight weeks at Lower Lee painting this portrait, becoming close friends with Catherine. They were well matched. She was known for her lavish dresses and he for his paintings of fashionable ladies.