Anna was painted in Ethel Walker’s London home studio at 127 Cheyne Walk in Chelsea—an L-shaped, first-floor room overlooking the River Thames. Only rarely did Walker paint portraits to commission and this work depicts an unknown sitter, one of many attractive younger women that Walker met near the King’s Road and invited to sit for her—another informal sitter Nicolette Devas remembered that ‘Ethel Walker was often to be met in the King’s Road.’ Anna is dressed glamorously with a heavy black coat or fur draped around her shoulders and an elaborate necklace around her neck, which is evoked with rich scrapes of impasto. The model is pictured from the front. Her features are distinctive—especially the small mouth, arced eyebrows and dark, bright eyes—and her hair is pulled back. As with all the paintings made in Walker’s small studio room, Anna appears to be seated close at hand and fills the width of the picture. The room behind her is visible only in small areas on either side of the head: a pile of books is to the left, and a dim impression of a mirror and a jug are discernible to the right. The paint is handled with such abandon that the whole picture surface is activated and spatial relations of depth break down, causing areas in the background to appear as finely woven elements of a continuous, richly decorative flat surface. This work was bequeathed by the artist to her friend, the Polish painter Marian Kratochwil, along with the other contents of her studio at 127 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. An inscription on the reverse of the canvas—UP66—was made by one of Walker’s executors, presumably Arthur Upton.