A small watercolour of Matilda Rose Herschel by her sister Sophia Maria Herschel.

Drawing lessons formed an essential part of the education of any upper middle class Victorian girl, even those such as the Herschels whose parents valued and encouraged the pursuit of more academic subjects such as science and languages for their daughters. Maria Sophia, like her sisters was taught at home by her mother, her father, her older sisters (namely the second eldest, Isabella, or Bella to the family), a string of governesses and for certain subjects outside tutors. In the 1840s the children certainly had an outside tutor come in once a week to teach art, whether this carried on into the1850s or was taken over by someone inside the family home there is not the documentary evidence to say.

This sketch by Maria Sophia of her younger sister could have been done as part of a formal lesson, or it could simply have been done for leisure.