Marie Spartali

(b London, 1844; d London, 1 March 1927). English painter and model. She was a member of a wealthy Greek family living in London and was introduced to the Pre-Raphaelite circle through another Greek family, the Ionides, known for their patronage of the arts. Swinburne described her as 'so beautiful that I want to sit down and cry'. She posed mainly for Dante Gabriel Rossetti but also for Edward Burne-Jones and Whistler, and she was photographed repeatedly during the later 1860s by Julia Margaret Cameron (prints in London, N.P.G.). From 1864 for a period of five or six years, Spartali was a pupil of Ford Madox Brown, working in his studio with his children, themselves aspiring artists. She painted mostly in watercolour, creating an oil-like density of colour. She was influenced by the work of Rossetti and produced a number of copies after his watercolours. Like him, she depicted women at leisure in idyllic settings or chose themes suggested by medieval literature, such as Sir Tristram and La Belle Iseult (exh. RA 1873; untraced).

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