Emmeline Deane was born in Bath, one of thirteen children of the Rev.

John Bathurst Deane, a South African-born English clergyman and author, and Louisa Deane, daughter of Sealy Fourdrinier.

[5] Her works include a portrait of Cardinal John Henry Newman, her first cousin once removed, that is in the National Portrait Gallery and a celebrated portrait of painter Anna Bilińska, her classmate in Paris, in mourning dress that is in the Victoria Art Gallery.

This painting evoked such emotional intensity of loss that, when exhibited in Paris and London, it "caused such a stir that it featured in a cartoon in Punch magazine.

"[4] The work is considered to be significant because it was not common, at that time, for women painters to create formal salon-style portraits of other women painters, let alone to exhibit them.