Focus on Mrs. Hugh Hammersley and analyze the History.
The portrait is of Mrs. Hammersley, née Mary Frances Grant (ca. 1863–ca. 1902), who was the wife of a banker and a fashionable London hostess. In the portrait, she is delicately poised on a French sofa.  According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art:"Her willowy form and candid expression suggest Sargent's ability to characterize and flatter simultaneously. Her gold-trimmed silk-velvet dress and the sumptuous setting announce his mastery of varied textures and patterns."
The painting was well reviewed when it appeared at the New Gallery in London in 1893.  The reviews it received there, and at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1894, appeared to forgive Sargent for his infamous Madame X in 1884.  The painting is among the first of Sargent's series of images of glamorous English women that culminated in The Wyndham Sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tennant of 1899. Conservators at the Metropolitan note, "Sargent’s unabashedly modern portrayal of the daring and stylish Mrs. Hammersley is a superb demonstration of the artist’s confidence and skill as well that of his sitter."
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts The Wyndham Sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tennant née Metropolitan Museum of Art Madame X