A lady, shown in full-length and with her back to the viewer, contemplates her reflection in an oval, gilt-framed mirror while trying on a new white dress and shawl. The shawl, which gives the painting its name, is captured as a fine dark grey gauze fabric, with perhaps silver-thread embroidery.

The setting is sparse but elegant with plain grey walls, furnished with a rich grey carpet and a single goldfish bowl on a little table on the right. The mirror image also reveals a window with gauze curtains and the façade of another building above them.

Algernon Talmage was primarily a landscape painter who exhibited prolifically at the Royal Academy. This was the first figure painting he showed there and his main interest was evidently in the colour harmonies, a symphony of greys recalling James McNeill Whistler's work.