Portrait of Mlle Rachel

It appears unfinished, suggesting that it was painted in a single sitting and Rachel did not return to give Etty the opportunity to complete it.

[11] Rachel was born in 1821 to poor Jewish parents,[12] and in 1838 made her debut in Paris in Pierre Corneille's Horace, a performance described as causing "a revolution in public taste".

[11] It is not in [passion] that, in our opinion, Mademoiselle Rachel chiefly excels, but in the exhibitions of the quiet emotions of irony, of sudden intelligence, of mute pain, and, above all, in elocution, in her appropriation of emphasis whenever she is determined (which she is not always) to give a phrase its full meaning.

[...] The other actors in the tragedy we purposely pass over, for there is no occasion to dwell on a company merely designed to get through, as chance may direct, the portions of the play not acted by Rachel.Rachel returned to London for further tours in 1842, 1846 and 1847.

[20] Etty died in November 1849 and soon fell out of fashion; by the late 19th century the values of all his paintings had fallen below their original prices.

On her death in early 1858, attempts by newspapers to publish pictures of her on her deathbed led to the introduction of privacy rights into French law, which have remained in place since.