This painting and Portrait of a Man aged about 45 were designed to hang together as portraits of a husband and wife. They are said to have been given by the painter Sir William Boxall RA, director of the National Gallery from 1865 to 1874, to his friend, the architect James Wyatt RA (1746–1813). Wyatt’s great-grandson, H.W. Standen, presented them to the National Gallery in 1964 as a ‘Self-Portrait of William Boxall and a companion portrait of his wife’. However, the features in the man’s portrait are unlike those in Boxall’s Self Portrait aged Nineteen, and he never married. It is now thought more likely that this is an early portrait by Boxall of his mother. The companion male portrait probably shows Boxall’s father.

The woman appears to be seated against an undefined background with what may be the red fabric of a chair or curtain behind her and an area of golden light to the left of her face. She wears a dark dress with a loosely painted diaphanous collar or shawl over her shoulders, apparently fastened with a red and gold brooch. She appears to be holding a pair of wire-framed spectacles in her lap. Her head is covered with a turban-like cap made of folded white fabric. Her face is depicted in more detail than any other part of the picture, with softly blended brushstrokes that resemble the texture and finish of a pastel drawing. The contour of her right cheek appears slightly uncertain and reworked, as though the artist has had trouble getting the line right first time.

The lady’s eyes are particularly striking with bright highlights in the dark pupils, intentionally hazy outlines to soften the focus and an intimate gaze that suggests the painter was well known to the sitter. The artist has skilfully captured the varying textures of the face – the soft down of the cheeks, the slight sheen on the bridge and at the end of the nose, the moist surface of the whites of the eyes and on the lips. The glossy curls at the lady’s forehead are suggested with great economy – little more than patches of brown highlighted with smudges of white. There is some damage to the dark paint in the background to the right.