The date 1736 inscribed on the reverse of the lining canvas places this portrait firmly within the context of Alexander’s later career in Scotland following his return to Britain from Italy in 1720. His aristocratic patronage remained concentrated in the north-east of Scotland, requiring him to operate from his Edinburgh studio as a travelling portrait painter throughout the 1720s and the 1730s. By 1933, when this painting was auctioned in Aberdeen, the precise identity of Alexander’s elderly sitter and the early history of her portrait had been lost. The provisional re-identification of the sitter as Helen Taylor, also known as Lady Braco, is supported by comparison with a portrait of her in old age painted by William Mosman in 1738.