Mary Thornycroft was commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to take casts and make models of their children. Princess Louise would have been able to watch Thornycroft make plaster casts of her and her siblings and translate them into marble. An example of the process is this life-size white marble statue of Princess Louise as Plenty, wearing a loose robe and holding a cornucopia in her right hand; a sheaf of corn lies beneath her right foot.

Louise would have learnt how to sit, measure proportions and use the appropriate tools for sculpting. Thornycroft was a significant figure in the princess’s life, as the artist later became her private tutor.