Ellen Terry (1847–1928) is familiar to many in the mind's eye, even when her name or specific achievements remain on the tip of the tongue. As the object of the admiring gaze of artists and photographers – G. F. Watts, John Singer Sargent and Julia Margaret Cameron – she materializes before us typically in solo form rather than in the midst of a group. Like many of her peers on the stage, she was widely reproduced in photographic portraits, marketing her image far and wide and feeding the appetite of hungry fans. Consequently, the value of her visual image was appreciated by the commercial world. She has been particularly known for her own supporting role in relation to powerful and famous men, the principal achievements of her working life associating her with Henry Irving. It was a long-lasting bond. According to Lynn Voskuil, the ‘power of personality’ characterized both Irving and Terry, known for personalities which were respectively ‘magnetic’ and ‘mesmeric’ and ‘charming’ and ‘effusive’. Voskuil claims for Irving and Terry a significant influence on theatre practice:

In the 1890s Terry attracted the adoration of Oscar Wilde and found an intimate correspondent in a young George Bernard Shaw.