Martha Constance Hattie Onions (1869–1933, foundress of the Barber Institute) married the property developer Henry Barber in 1893. They moved into the eighteenth-century Culham Court on the Thames in the same year. The grounds overlooking the river appear as a backdrop for this full-length portrait in which she is accompanied by her two Yorkshire terriers. The Barber collection contains more than twenty other portraits of Lady Barber, many commissioned as gifts for her husband. The American artist James Shannon was influenced by his compatriot John Singer Sargent. His flamboyant style made him one of the most sought after society portraitists of the Edwardian period.