As well as being a celebrated beauty, in demand as a sitter by the Pre-Raphaelite painters (see lot 92), Marie Spartali herself was a talented artist. Devoted to drawing from an early age, she sought instruction from Ford Madox Brown in 1864. He urged her 'to adopt painting as a life-study', and for the next five or six years she had regular lessons in his studio, working alongside his own three children - Lucy, Catherine, and the precocious but short-lived Oliver, or 'Nolly' - who were also embarking on artistic careers. She began to exhibit in 1867 when she showed three works, all single female figures betraying the strong influence of Rossetti and Brown, at the Dudley Gallery in Piccadilly. This had been founded in 1865 and specialised in watercolours by young Pre-Raphaelite followers, the coming 'Aesthetic' generation. Marie showed there for a number of years, and in the 1870s her work appeared occasionally at the Royal Academy. In 1877, however, she began to exhibit regularly at the Grosvenor Gallery, founded that year as a radical alternative to the Academy with Burne-Jones and Whistler as its 'stars'; and she transferred to its successor, the New Gallery, in 1888. Even when she settled in Italy following her husband's appointment as correspondent for The Times, she continued to show two or three works every year in London.

Although she painted portraits and landscapes, Marie is best know for her imaginative subjects. Rossetti's Early Italian Poets (1861) was a constant source of inspiration, and her life in Italy also encouraged an interest in Italian literary themes (see lot 94.) She kept to a modest scale and worked almost exclusively in watercolour, although she tended to use this with the density of oil. Her drawing is often shaky, but her colour-sense was good (William Michael Rossetti, writing on her work in the Portfolio in 1871 compared her in this respect to Lady Waterford), and her sensitive imagination always lends her work interest and charm.

The present picture was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879 (when she also showed Fiammetta Singing, offered in these Rooms on 25 October 1991, lot 21). An outstanding example, it is a fanciful portrait of her daughter Effie, and clearly reveals her affection for the subject. Born on 7 January 1872, Effie inherited her mother's good looks (Rossetti referred to her in 1879 as 'the divinely lovely Effie'), and the artistic proclivities of both her parents. She became a hightly accomplished sculptor, exhibiting regularly in London for some fifteen years before her career was cut short at the age of thirty-nine. In 1905 she married William Ritchie, a barrister. Three children were born, and following the birth of the third she died on 18 August 1911. For an account of her career and photographs of her work, see Philip Attwood, 'Effie Stillman, Sculptor and Medallist', in The Medal, 14, Spring 1989, pp. 48-59