Madam Vestris is depicted in this engraving as Don Felix Toxado, the son of Don Christopher Toxado, the Alcaid of Morlorido, in James Kenney's lengthy and complicated three act comic opera The Alcaid; or, the Secrets of Office, Theatre Royal Haymarket on 10 August 1824. Composed by Isaac Nathan, the opera featured William Farren as the interfering and amorous magistrate Don Christopher Toxado; John Liston as the covetous steward Pedrosa; Mrs Garrick as Donna Francisca, and Miss Paton as Rosabel. The London Magazine , September 1824, deemed it full of: 'slashed doublets, masks, and improbabilities', calling it 'a tame and even confused copy of all past and established Spanish confusions' containing: 'the usual allowance of regularly irregular characters'. Of Madam Vestris as Don Felix it decided: 'She is the best bad young man about town, and can stamp a smart leg in white tights with the air of a fellow who has an easy heart and a good tailor. We remember once seeing Madame Vestris in female attire and thought her a very interesting young person in that solitary instance, but we presume that she herself inclines to pantaloons and prefers to contemplate the daring knee and boot to the neat and modest foot veiled below the ankle.'

The English actress, singer and theatre manager Madame Vestris, the daughter of Gaetano Stefano Bartolozzi and his wife, Theresa Jansen was born Lucy Eliza Bartolozzi in January 1797 at 72 Dean Street, Soho, London. In 1813 aged sixteen she embarked on an unsuccessful marriage with Auguste Armand Vestris, the dancing master at the King's Theatre who left her in 1821. She made her first professional appearance on the London stage aged eighteen on 20 July 1815, at the King's Theatre, as Proserpina in Peter Winter's Il Ratto di Proserpina, and her first appearance in English opera at Drury Lane Theatre, 19 Feb. 1820, as Lilla in Cobb's Siege of Belgrade . She was praised for her fine contralto voice and could have made her name in opera but instead became a great success in Drury Lane's production of Moncrieff's Giovanni in London, 30 May 1820, a burlesque of Mozart's Don Giovanni. Her role as Paul in Paul and Virgina was one of her most famous 'breeches' roles, and she became as well known for her beauty and her shapely legs in parts such as these, as for her acting ability.

This engraving, after an original by Thomas Charles Wageman, was first published by Thomas Dolby in September1824, three months after Madame Vestris made her first appearance as Don Felix in The Alcaid, and was reprinted two years later as a frontispiece to volume eight of John Cumberland's British Theatre.