It was here, the following year, that she was introduced to William, 16th Earl of Morton, which led to artistic training, aristocratic and Royal patronage and, ultimately, the acknowledgment of the Society of Arts and the Royal Academy. 

In spite of her disabilities – and the fact she was a woman – Biffin achieved considerable recognition. She became sufficiently popular, for instance, to have her London studio mentioned in Charles Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby, Martin Chuzzlewit and The Old Curiosity Shop. 

In 1824, she married a bank clerk, William Stephen Wright, but the marriage did not last, though he left her, she wrote, with “a very modest salary”. 

In her last years, as her skill dwindled, she was supported by a pension awarded by Queen Victoria, whose portrait she had painted in 1848. The Queen also bought a portrait Biffin made of her father, the Duke of Kent, in 1839. Biffin died in 1850 aged 66. Years later, the Rev Edward Boys Ellman described her as “a heavy looking woman; she wore a turban and was always seated on a sofa. 

Her paint brush was pinned to a large puff sleeve which covered the short stump of the upper part of the arm. When painting she leant her right shoulder forward, almost touching the table. She fixed and removed the paint brush with her teeth, when necessary to wash the brush. She declared that she considered that for painting she had the advantage of those who had arms, for surely it was easier to paint with a short brush than with a long stick!”