By 1885 when she played Petti-Sing in Gilbert and Sullivan's Japanese opera The Mikado, Jessie Bond (1854-1942) was a well-known actress and mezzo-soprano, the creator of soubrette roles in the operas staged by D'Oyly Carte's including Cousin Hebe in HMS Pinafore (1882) and the title role in Iolanthe (1882). As a well-known celebrity her autograph would have been often requested, so she had this photograph of her wearing her Petti-Sing costume printed on Japanese paper, to which she added her signature. She spent twenty years on stage, most of them with the D'Oyly Carte Company.

Japanese rice paper, delicately wood-block printed with different scenes and characters, was imported into the UK during the 1880s and was used for various purposes. Westminster's Aquarium Theatre for programmes; memorials for late celebrities were printed on it with added black borders, and poems for sale were printed on it including Rudyard Kipling's The Absent-Minded Beggar.