Claude-Marie Dubufe was the first in a dynasty of painters, famous for his portraits of the great and the good, monarchs and ladies of high society. Father of Édouard and grandfather of Guillaume, he made his debut at the Salon of 1810 with mythological and religious subjects, before turning to a more anecdotal and sentimental repertory as from 1827. He excelled as a society portraitist under Louis-Philippe.

He exhibited eight portraits at the Salon of 1837, and the same year painted the portrait of Élisabeth-Adélaïde Cavallier, born in 1822, who was the wife of Francis Vaussard. The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen has another more dramatic portrait by Dubufe from 1840 of Mme Rampal, Comtesse de Grigneuseville. Both works bear witness to the taste for all things English at the time. The one here is in a country vein, evoking the heroines of Jane Austen.