This delicate chalk drawing depicts Amelia Robertson Hill, portrait sculptor and second wife of the painter and photographic pioneer David Octavius Hill. She was also the elder sister of prominent artists Joseph Noel and Waller Hugh Paton. Her earlier works consisted mainly of portraits of family and friends, but her professional career flourished after her marriage, aged forty-two, to D.O. Hill. The couple were prominent members of the Edinburgh social scene and Hill sculpted portrait busts of eminent sitters such as Thomas Carlyle, Sir George Harvey and physicist David Brewster. She also completed a number of public commissions, including memorial statues of David Livingstone in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, and Robert Burns in Dumfries.