Marie Spartali Stillman
English painter and artists' model, 1844–1927
By 1867 Marie Spartali was an intimate of the Rossetti circle, and under his influence she gradually extended her range from portraiture and Greek mythological and Shakespearean subjects to include pictures based on tales from Dante Alighieri and Boccaccio. In 1869 she met William James Stillman (1828-1901), the recently widowed founder of the American art magazine The Crayon; in 1871 she married him in the face of fierce opposition from her family and turned her hack on her wealth to make her way as an artist. The couple lived in Florence from 1878 until 1883, which was the most fruitful period of her development as an artist, and in Rome from 1889 to 1896, after her husband's appointment as The Times correspondent there. The success of her work was essential to the family's finances, and much of her prolific output, including scores of well-executed flower pieces, was frankly intended for the marketplace. Nevertheless, many of her more important paintings-such as Gathering Orange Blossoms (exhibited at the Grosvenor in 1879; now at St. Lawrence University); La Pensierosa, an outstanding portrait of her six-year-old daughter Euphrosyne [Effie] (1879; Elvehjem Gallery, University of Madison-Wisconsin); and The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice on All Saints' Day (1881, location unknown) date from her time in Florence.
The Stillmans retired to England in 1896, where William died in 1901. Marie continued to paint and to exhibit, mainly in New York and Boston, until her death in 1927.
From "Biography of Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927)" by Stephen Wildman, in 'Waking Dreams: The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites from the Delaware Art Museum' (Alexandria, VA: Art Services International, 2004), p. 371-372.
Person TypeIndividual
Terms
- artists
- models (people)
- female
British sculptor and medalist, 1872–1911
American illustrator, 1875–1954
English painter, illustrator, and sculptor, 1839–1927
British photographer, 1815–1879
British Pre-Raphaelite painter, 1828–1882
English painter, 1838–1904
British artist, educationalist and women's rights activist, 1827–1891