Susanna Hamilton was the daughter of the 1st Duke of Hamilton, King Charles I's principal Scottish adviser. She spent her childhood at her father's house in Chelsea, surround by his great collection of paintings by Rubens, Correggio and Van Dyck. Wright's sensitive portrait shows Susanna Hamilton at thirty, and suggests character and intelligence rather than flattering her appearance. Five years later, she married the nineteen-year-old Earl of Cassillis.