This portrait is part of a series of twelve learned women, paintings which all belonged to Queen Louisa Ulrika. She inherited her interest in education from her mother, Sophia Dorothea of Hannover, and her paternal grandmother, Sophia Charlotte of Hannover. The models were all learned French women. Of these, one was a contemporary of Louisa Ulrika – the Marquise du Châtelet, a renowned mathematician and Voltaire’s muse.