Ethel Bartlett stands looking to the right, her hands clasped in front of her. Her dark hair is drawn back in a bun. She wears a black velvet dress with full-length sleeves which are puffed at the top, but which continue close to the arm. The sleeves are cut away in loops at the side to show the arm beneath, a pearl button between each loop. The collar is a roll, wound round with a string of pearls, and she wears pearl earrings and rings. The skirt of the dress is very full and gathered at the waist. The background is an interior wall, with framed drawings on either side of the subject. On the right is the side of a chair, and there is a patterned carpet on the floor. To the left of the sitter an allusion to Laura Knight's 'Grecian Dancer', to the right to Robert Austin's engraving 'A Woman Praying'.