Lambert painted this self-portrait, featuring his wife Amy, in the tradition of the ‘Grand Manner’ or ‘swagger’ portrait, which typified English portraiture from the 1630s to the 1930s. The style, which emphasised the subject’s stature through pose and dress, was influenced by the paintings of Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), named court painter to England’s King Charles I in 1632, and later mastered by the English portraitist Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) and American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925).

Lambert moved to Europe in 1900, after winning the inaugural New South Wales Travelling Scholarship. He settled in London and established a reputation for portraits of public figures, including his patron, King Edward VII. In addition to these commissions, Lambert often made portraits of family and friends, such as Self portrait with Ambrose Patterson, Amy Lambert and Hugh Ramsay c.1901–03.