This print was taken from an album of photographs some of which were annotated "Fred Hollyer, Blewbury". In 1930 Frederick Hollyer (1838-1933) the famous portrait and art photographer went to live with his son Frederick Thomas Hollyer (1870-1952) at his house in Blewbury, Berkshire where he died in 1933. These photographs are undoubtedly from the 1870's given the style of dress and therefore can only be the work of Frederick Hollyer senior.

They are remarkable in their naturalism for the time, as well as being a popular contemporary subject for art photography.

Renowned Pictorialist photographer Fredrick Hollyer (1838-1933) became interested in photography about 1860. He made albumen and carbon prints, but his preferred medium were platinum prints admired for their permanence and great tonal range. Under the patronage of Frederic Leighton, Hollyer began to photograph paintings and drawings in the 1870's. He joined the Royal Photographic Society in 1865 becoming a fellow in 1895. He was also a member of the Linked Ring, a photographic society formed to promote art photography and Pictorialism in opposition to the RPS.

In 1870 Hollyer moved to a studio at 9 Pembroke Square, Kensington close to the centre of an artistic circle that included the painters GF Watts, Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Here he made photographic reproductions of paintings by these artists leading to a professional relationship with the Victoria and Albert Museum.

His other speciality was portrait photography. For 30 years  beginning in 1882 artists, actors, journalists, doctors and scientists arrived at his studio to have their portraits taken. The National Portrait Gallery now holds a substantial collection of 111 of his portraits.