Christina Robertson was born in Kinghorn, Scotland and was an internationally recognised portrait painter. It is thought that her uncle George Saunders taught her to paint at his studio in London. She quickly established herself as a portrait and miniature painter, and in 1829 she became the first woman to be elected as an honorary member of the Royal Scottish Academy. Her reputation allowed her to travel to Paris and Russia to work. After exhibiting in Russia and painting numerous portraits of fashionable society women, she was commissioned by the Russian Royal family to paint several portraits. Robertson was made an honorary member of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1841 and frequently travelled to Russia where she kept a studio in St. Petersburg.