This music sheet cover is illustrated with a colour lithograph image by Alfred Concanen of the popular burlesque and comic opera star Florence St. John in the title role of the English version of Offenbach's Madame Favart by H.B. Farnie. She is depicted dressed as a street singer, a disguise she has been forced to adopt to escape the nunnery where she has been imprisoned.

Offenbach's opera was originally staged in Paris at the Théâtre des Folies-Dramatiques on 28 December 1878, and since French comic opera was all the rage in London in the 1870s Farnie's version was ready to open at the Strand Theatre by 12th April 1879 with Claude Marius (1850–1896) as Favart, and Walter H. Fisher, then Henry Bracy (1846–1917) as Hector. The plot included the usual improbable twists and turns of comic opera, but was woven around the real-life characters the playwright-manager Charles-Simon Favart (1710–1792) and his celebrated actress wife Marie Justine Benoîte Duronceray (1727–1775). The London version was extremely popular and ran for 502 performances - a very long run for its day, generating several items of sheet music from the individual numbers to the Walz, Polka, Gavotte and Lancers that were frequently created incorporating a variety of tunes from the works.