It is to be assumed that the picture was painted in 1828, as this is the date of the artist’s letter to the collector, Digby Murray who bought it. The elegant sitter is obviously deliberately anonymous, and it may be that the artist simply used a model to create such a fashionably desirable image. Etty did paint a small number of portraits but these were almost always of personal friends. Etty’s sensuality as a painter is obvious in many parts of this picture, not only the flesh painting for which he was famous but also in the painting of the costume, jewellery and the peacock feather the sitter is holding.

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