The original drawing of Fanny Kemble (1809- 1893) from which this print was made by the photographer, photogravurist and reproductive printmaker George Meisenbach (1841-1912), was executed by the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), who was knighted by the Prince Regent in April 1815. Lawrence knew the family through her sister-in-law Sarah Siddons (née Kemble), who met Lawrence in Bath before he came to London in 1787. Lawrence also sketched her father Charles Kemble, in a portrait that appears in the book Imitations of the chalk drawings &c of Sir Thos. Lawrence. published in 1830.

Born Frances Anne Kemble, Fanny was the eldest daughter of the actor Charles Kemble and his Viennese-born wife, the former Marie Thérèse De Camp, or Maria Theresa Kemble, and niece of the actors Sarah Siddons and John Philip Kemble. Her younger sister was the opera singer Adelaide Kemble. Fanny made her first appearance on the London stage at Covent Garden Theatre in 1829, as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet. Lawrence drew the original portrait in 1831, after her success in the role and before her retirement from the stage on her marriage in 1834.