This miniature is framed in a locket with a hair ornament set on the reverse. The fashion for hair ornaments set in the back of miniature lockets developed in the late 18th century. The giving of tokens of hair was a long-established practice. When Queen Charlotte appointed Samuel Finney as her miniature painter in 1763, she sent him a lock of her hair. This, he wrote in his memoir, should be 'preserved by his family with the same care and reverence as a good catholick would the relicks of his patron Saint'. The back of a miniature provided a perfect setting for such tokens, but the fashion for hair ornaments grew to such an extent that they were sometimes merely decorative rather than sentimental. It is not clear whether these two curls of hair joined by a band of seed pearls come from the sitter or are merely ornamental.

The miniature was painted by Mary Ann Knight (1776-1851), a well-known miniature painter in Regency Britain. She regularly exhibited at the Royal Academy. Knight took lessons with Andrew Plimer, who, through his time with Mary Ann, met and eventually married her sister, Joanna Louisa Knight. Mary Ann Knight and Andrew Plimer remained close throughout her life. In addition to her portraits of British sitters, she also painted the miniature portrait of Teyoninhokarawen, Major John Norton, an Indigenous Mohawk chief of Cherokee descent, and several in his social circle in London.