Thea Proctor and Haidee De Lissa had met at the Julian Ashton Art School in the 1890s. Both talented musicians, Proctor’s illustration in De Lissa’s autograph book is captioned, 'My Lady Plucks a Red, Red Rose’ in reference to a popular song of the day by Australian composer Esther Kahn, published in 1901 and described in the Evening News:

a tenor song of considerable merit. The dainty verses are from the pen of Robert Richardson, and are faithfully and sympathetically interpreted by the music. The accompaniment forms an admirable support to the melody, which has already been successfully introduced to the Sydney public by Mr. Henry Weir’.

In a curious collecting coincidence, the Library holds a second, smaller, version of this watercolour by Thea Proctor, which is painted into the autograph book of Haidee De Lissa, who was Inez Bensusan’s sister-in-law and another Jewish Sydney aesthete. 

In 1898, Haidee De Lissa and the Misses Inez and Orovida Bensusan had also formed part of a set of eight young ladies attending the first fancy dress ball of the Society of Artists. Held at Sydney’s Paddington Town Hall, their group wore dresses designed by the artist D.H. Souter (1862-1935) which were described as being in the style of English Aesthetic movement illustrator Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) who was influenced by the taste for all things Japanese.