Beatrice

The title of this attractive example is traditional, and the picture has not been identified with any of the pictures that Marie Stillman exhibited at the New Gallery, her normal practice at this time. However, the theme of Beatrice would be typical of an artist who consistently drew inspiration from Dante, Boccaccio, and other Italian medieval authors. Her subjects were often taken from Rossetti's Early Italian Poets (1861), and the fact that she lived for many years in Florence and Rome as the wife of the journalist J. W. Stillman naturally had a profound impact on her imagination. They finally returned to England on Stillman's retirement in 1898, the year this picture was painted.