This is a portrait of Margaret Somerville (1799-1882), the daughter of John Sommerville, born in Lanark, Scotland, who later became Mrs. Alfred Bunn. It was sketched by Sir George Hayter (1792-1871), the young painter who was to become Queen Victoria's portrait painter and whom she knighted in 1842. It was published in London by Colnaghi on 24 June 1816 when Miss Somerville was 16 and had just begun her stage career at Drury Lane Theatre, where she had opened on 9th May as Imogine in the tragedy Bertram.

This portrait was sketched before her marriage to Alfred Bunn (1796-1860) in May 1817, when one of her witnesses was Anne Hayter, the younger sister of the artist who executed this portrait. Alfred Bunn went on to become the manager of both Covent Garden and Drury Lane Theatres.