Louisa Barnard was born in London in 1807 to David and Rebecca Davidson Barnard. Her brother, Philip Augustus Barnard, became a major English portraitist and painted his sister and her groom, Arthur Lumley Levy, on the occasion of their marriage in 1840. Though she spent the next 47 years with her husband, it is unknown how many children they had, if any, apart from a son, Joseph Arthur Levy.