Aglaia Coronio belonged to the large Anglo-Greek family of Ionides which played such a crucial part in the history of Victorian art and taste. Born in 1834, she was the second child and eldest daughter of Alexander Ionides, the wealthy head of a merchant house who had settled at Tulse Hill and was famous for his hospitality among the artistic, literary and diplomatic communities of London. Her elder brother Constantine formed the collection of paintings, drawings and prints now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, embracing works by Corot, Millet, Delacroix and Degas, as well as reflecting his contacts with Watts, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Legros and others. Her younger brothers Luke and Alexander (Alecco) had belonged to the Whistler/Du Maurier set in Paris in the late 1850s. In later life Luke became an intimate friend of Burne-Jones, while Alecco ('the Greek' in Du Maurier's Trilby), created one of the great 'aesthetic' houses of the day at 1 Holland Park, next door to Aglaia and her husband who settled at 1A in 1869. The youngest sibbling, Chariclea, married the musician Edward Danureuther, who did so much to promote interest in Wagner in England (for further information, see Julia Atkins, 'The Ionides Family', Antique Collector, June 1987, pp.86-92). Aglaia herself married Theodore Coronio (d. 1903) in 1855 and was a friend of many artists in her family circle. She was particularly close to William Morris (her exact contemporary), with whom she conducted a long correspondence. Her 'perfect taste', wrote Lady Burne-Jones, 'helped (Edward) a hundred times by finding fabrics and arranging dresses for models', and she performed similar duties for Rossetti, being particularly involved with his painting The Day Dream, commissioned by Constantine in 1879. As for her relationship with Watts, of all the Ionides, according to Mrs Watts, she was his 'most frequent visitor to the end of his life. He appreciated her wit and the quiet discernment of her taste.'

Alexander Ionides, Aglaia's father, had been one of Watts's earliest patrons, and Watts painted over twenty portraits of the family, spanning five generations. Aglaia first appears as a child in a group portrait with her mother and two eldest brothers (1837; repr. Atkins, op. cit., p.86). She was painted again, alone, as a child (Mrs Watts's MS catalogue, II, p.75), at the time of her marriage in 1855, (according to Mrs Watts this portrait existed in two versions, one done for her father, the other for her husband), and twice more at unknown dates. She was also painted by Legros and was the subject of a chalk drawing by Rossetti (1870; Victoria & Albert Museum), in which she is seen wearing the same necklace as appears in the present picture.

Aglaia Coronio's end was worthy of some heroine in Greek tragedy. To quote Mrs Watts again, 'she felt deeply the loss of Rossetti (1882), of Morris (1896), of G.F. Watts (1904) and others, and finally found life unendurable when her only daughter (see lot 13) died in 1906. This last sorrow was beyond her courage to bear, and she died by her own hand.' Her daughter died on Sunday, 19 August, and Mrs Coronio took her own life, by stabbing herself with scissors, the following day.

We are grateful to Richard Jefferies, Curator of the Watts Gallery, for his help in preparing this entry.