Born Elizabeth Thompson in Lausanne, she lived in France and then Italy, where she trained in art. Elizabeth's father was well-to-do, her mother a talented pianist, and both were interested in art and travel. At an early age Elizabeth was encouraged to paint and draw. At first she concentrated on painting portraits and landscapes but after visiting France, where she saw paintings inspired by the Franco-Prussian War, she began to paint military and equestrian subjects. She was to become perhaps the leading painter of this genre of the late nineteenth century.

Her first success, in 1874, after her pictures were rejected by the Royal Academy in London for several years running, was with the Roll Call, which was highly praised and became the talking point of the show. Crowds flocked to the Academy to see the painting. It was so popular that it was decided to take the painting on a tour around the country, and it was purchased by Queen Victoria. The following year she managed to surpass this in the eyes of the critics with Quatre Bras.

The main reason why Elizabeth's painting created such a sensation was that she had taken a new approach to military paintings. Up until this time military paintings had shown "panoramic views of battles or scenes of gallant officers performing heroic deeds". However, Elizabeth had painted a picture of a group of British soldiers after they had taken part in a battle during the Crimean War. Unlike previous military painters, Butler was interested in recording the pain and suffering of ordinary soldiers.

John Ruskin, Britain's leading art critic at the time wrote: "I have always said that no women could paint." After seeing Roll Call Ruskin admitted he had been wrong.

Soldiers who had taken part in the battle would visit her studio in Portsmouth. These men would pose for her wearing the uniforms and carrying the weapons that they had used during the battle.

Her marriage to William Butler was ideal from her art point of view, as she was able to accompany him on his military campaigns and paint more battle pictures abroad. After their marriage they obtained a house at Delgany, County Wicklow, where they stayed between William Butler's overseas appointments and travels on the continent. In 1879, when the troubles arose that were to lead to the Second Anglo-Afghan War, she was reminded of a story that her father told her as a child, concerning the arrival of a British Army surgeon at the gates of Jellalabad, the only survivor of 16,000 soldiers and camp followers who had tried to flee there from Kabul. She showed the resulting picture, Remnants of an Army at the next exhibition, along with a painting she had done in Ireland, Listed for the Connaught Rangers, and it became one of her best-known works.

While living in Ireland, she heard of a Catholic woman who was about to be evicted from her home. Elizabeth hurried to the scene and arrived to find the women's cabin had been destroyed by the landlord. While the women searched the ruins for her belongings, Elizabeth set up her easel and began to paint the scene. For historical reasons the British public had little sympathy for the plight of the Catholics in Ireland. Elizabeth's painting Evicted was unpopular in Britain and failed to find a buyer.

Butler also did some black and white illustration, including of poems by her sister, Alice Meynell, and of works by Thackeray. In her later life she lived in Ireland, and showed pictures at the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1892.

Among the paintings that she took with her to Co. Tipperary was a set of water-colours that she had painted in Palestine. During the Civil War they were transferred to Gormanston Castle for safe keeping, but were almost destroyed later by German bombs in London.

The photo is from the Irish Times of May 19, 1925. She was attending an "at home" of the Water-colour Society, at which one of her paintings took pride of place.

Lady Butler spent much time talking to soldiers and studying military uniforms in order to achieve accuracy in even the smallest details. She painted at Bansha Castle, in "the wilds of Tipperary", from 1905 to 1922. She then lived at Gormanston Castle, County Meath, with her daughter Eileen, Viscountess Gormanston, from 1922 until she died in 1933.