Sarah Blanche Matthews (b.1794) was an actress and singer who is credited on playbills for a variety of singing roles at Covent Garden from September 1813 when she appeared in the title role of the musical farce Rosina (and sang 'Whilst Village Maids Stray'), with Mr. Incledon as Belville and Mrs. Liston as Phoebe - to November 1819 when she played Venus in Arthur and Emmeline, an adaptation of Garrick's version of Dryden's King Arthur, or, The British Worthy.

In April 1815 she played Lepida in John Bishop's comic opera The Noble Outlaw; in May, Annette in the opera The Lord of the Manor by Bishop, T. Welsh, Reeve, Davy, and Mr. Jackson; and in June, Venus in the opera Telemachus with music 'composed and selected from the works of the most eminent masters' by Mr. Bishop. In November she appeared as Nysa in Bishop's burletta of Kane O'Hara's Midas with Mrs. Liston as Mysis; as Mrs. Davenport in Frederick Reynolds' 'comic piece' What's a man of fashion?, and in December as Amanda (daughter to Grumpino) in the musical Bobinet the bandit, or, The forest of Montescarpini that featured an overture and vocal music by John Addison, and a Mozart waltz.

This portrait appeared in the June 1815 edition of La Belle Assembée, or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine first published in 1806 by the successful London printer John Bell (1745-1831), who owned several other magazines. La Belle Assemblée was primarily a women's magazine with fashion plates, celebrity profiles, sheet music, poetry, fiction, news items and some scientific articles. Its first fashion plates from February 1806 were not coloured, but from November 1806 it came out in two forms, uncoloured at 2s 6d or hand-coloured at 3s 6d, illustrating outfits worn by ladies of rank as well as the latest styles. It was printed monthly for people to compile into volumes, and rather confusingly its illustrations were dated a month ahead - hence this portrait of Miss Matthews is dated 1st July 1815.