The subject of the portrait, Margravine Karoline Luise von Baden — born Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt — laid the foundation for the collection of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe with the approximately 200 artworks she had acquired. Liotard depicts her here, elegantly dressed, as a princess, also primarily as an artist in front of an easel. Liotard taught her the medium of pastel; for his own pastels he was admired throughout Europe. Characteristic of his (and Karoline Luise’s) working method is the softly rubbed surface.