Marie Spartali Stillman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marie Spartali Stillman, photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron.
Marie Spartali Stillman, photograph by Julia Margaret Cameron.

Marie Euphrosyne Spartali, later Stillman (March 10, 1844 – March 6, 1927), was a London-born Pre-Raphaelite painter of Greek descent, arguably the greatest female artist of that movement. During a sixty-year career she produced over one hundred works, contributing regularly to galleries in Great Britain and the United States.

Contents

[edit] Life

Maria Spartali was the youngest daughter of Michael Spartali, a wealthy merchant and Greek consul-general based in London, and his wife Euphrosyne.

She and her cousins Maria Zambaco and Aglaia Coronio were known collectively among friends as "the Three Graces", after the Charites of Greek mythology (Aglaia, Euphrosyne and Thalia), as all three were noted beauties of Greek heritage. Swinburne said of Spartali: "She is so beautiful that I want to sit down and cry".

Spartali studied under Ford Madox Brown for several years from 1864, with his children Lucy, Catherine and Oliver. She modelled for: Brown; Burne-Jones (The Mill); Julia Margaret Cameron; Rossetti (A Vision of Fiammetta, Dante's Dream, The Bower Meadow); Spencer Stanhope; and Whistler (La Princesse du Pays de la Porcelaine).

A Rose from Armida's Garden (1894) by Marie Spartali Stillman.
A Rose from Armida's Garden (1894) by Marie Spartali Stillman.

In 1871, against her parents' wishes, she married American journalist and painter William J. Stillman. She was his second wife, his first having committed suicide two years before. His job as a foreign correspondent resulted in the couple dividing their time between London and Florence from 1878 to 1883, and then Rome from 1889 to 1896. She also travelled to America, and was the only Britain-based Pre-Raphaelite artist to work in the United States.

Spartali's daughter Euphrosyne "Effie" and her stepdaughter Lisa both became artists. Her son Michael became an architect.

Marie Spartali died in London in 1927. She was cremated at Brookwood Cemetery, near Woking, Surrey and interred in her father's tomb at West Norwood Cemetery

[edit] Art

The subjects of her paintings were typical of the Pre-Raphaelites: female figures; scenes from Shakespeare, Petrarch, Dante and Boccaccio; also Italian landscapes. She exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, then at the Grosvenor Gallery and its successor, the New Gallery; at the Royal Academy; and at various galleries in the eastern USA, including the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. A retrospective show of her work took place in the United States in 1982.

[edit] Works

David Elliott lists more than 170 works in his book. The following are the better-known works, as determined by their mention in other books which discuss the artist.

Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni by Marie Spartali Stillman (1884)
Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni by Marie Spartali Stillman (1884)
  • Self-Portrait (1871) Delaware Art Museum
  • Gathering Orange Blossoms (1879) St. Lawrence University
  • The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice on All Saints' Day (1881)
  • Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni (1884) Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
  • Love's Messenger (1885) Delaware Art Museum
  • A Florentine Lily (c 1885-90) private collection
  • The May Feast at the House of Folco Portinari (1887)
  • Dante at Verona (1888) private collection
  • Upon a Day Came Sorrow unto Me (1888)
  • A Florentine Lily (c 1885-90)
  • Messer Ansaldo showing Madonna Dionara his Enchanted Garden (1889)
  • Convent Lily (1891)
  • Cloister Lilies (1891)
  • Saint George (1892) Delaware Art Museum
  • How the Virgin Mary came to Brother Conrad of Offida and laid her Son in his Arms (1892) Wightwick Manor, The Mander Collection
  • A Rose from Armida's Garden (1894)
  • Love Sonnets (1894) Delaware Art Museum
  • Beatrice (1895) Delaware Art Museum
  • Portrait of Mrs W. St Clair Baddeley (1896)
  • Beatrice (1898) private collection
  • The Pilgrim Folk (1914) Delaware Art Museum

[edit] References

  • Elliot, David B. (2005). A Pre-Raphaelite Marriage: The Lives and Works of Marie Spartali Stillman and William James Stillman. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1-85149-495-2. 
  • Marsh, Jan; Pamela Gerrish Nunn (1998). Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists. London: Thames and Hudson, pp131-135. ISBN 0-500-28104-1. 
  • Stillman, William James (1901). Autobiography of a Journalist. London: Grant Richards. 

[edit] External links

Languages