Vigée Le Brun was among the most successful French portraitists of the eighteenth century and a rare female member of the Royal Academy. At the outbreak of the Revolution, she was forced to flee Paris, having served as first painter to the queen. Settling in Rome, she established a thriving practice portraying emigrés and expatriates, among them the sitter for this portrait. Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland (1766-1816) had been an actress at the Comédie Française before the revolution. In Rome, she became the lover–and later the wife–of a British aristocrat, the First Marquess Wellesley of Norragh. Windswept and free of extraneous ornament, the portrait exemplifies the engagingly informal style that Vigée adopted in Italy.