The sitter was the wife of the second head of the Anglo-Greek Merchant House in London. The firm which was founded by Pantia Stephen Ralli (1793 – 1865) was inherited by the sitter’s nephew, Stephen Augustus Ralli (1829 – 1902) who devoted his entire career to his business interests. He commissioned Lord Leighton to paint the portrait of his wife while he himself was painted by the fashionable Royal Academician Walter William Ouless (1848 – 1933), in 1881, the very year when Ouless was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy.

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