Her notable works include The Roll Call (purchased by Queen Victoria), The Defence of Rorke's Drift, and Scotland Forever!

[1] Born at the Villa Claremont in Lausanne, Switzerland, Butler was the daughter of Thomas James Thompson (1812–1881) and his second wife, Christiana Weller (1825–1910).

[2][3][4] Initially concentrating on religious subjects like The Magnificat (1872), upon going to Paris in 1870, she was exposed to battle scenes from Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier and Édouard Detaille, and switched her focus to war paintings.

With the painting Missing (1873), a Franco-Prussian War battle scene depicting the common soldiers' suffering and heroism, she earned her first submission to the Royal Academy.

[2][3][4] While Lady Butler's topics reflected such romanticism, her paintings were generally realistic in detail, with aspects such as confusion, mud and exhaustion being accurately portrayed.

After her marriage in 1877 to William Francis Butler, a distinguished British Army officer, from County Tipperary, Ireland, she travelled to the far reaches of the Empire with her husband and raised their six children.

Lady Butler exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.

[2][3] Butler was included in the 2018 exhibit Women in Paris 1850–1900,[7] whilst the 2023 play Modest covered her life from Roll Call to her rejection as an Associate of the Royal Academy.