Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni, by Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927)

Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni

Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927)

1884

Watercolour and bodycolour

Collection: Walker Gallery, Liverpool

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Depicting the cold, heartless woman of Dante's poem of the same title ("Utterly frozen ... no more moved than is the stone"), this still manages to be alluring. [Commentary continues below.]

Image download and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]

Identified as being in the public domain.

The Walker Gallery website points out that "This type of painting, a half length femme fatale in Renaissance costume, was initiated by Rossetti and imitated by many others," and that this may well have been a tribute to Rossetti, who had died just when the painting was commenced. In an essay on Stillman, Jan Marsh draws our attention to the little crystal globe that the Madonna holds, in which we can just see an image of the Annunciation. This, Marsh suggests, is a reference to the Feast of the Virgin on 25 March, marking the end of the winter, a motif widely employed in Florentine religious art (169). The globe itself plays a useful role in simultaneously enclosing and making a feature of the reference. This was a device that Edward Burne-Jones employed in his Six Days of Creation and elsewhere.

This painting was shown at the National Portrait Gallery, London, where it featured in the "Pre-Raphaelite Sisters" exhibition, 17 October 2019 – 26 January 2020. [Review]

Bibliography

"Marie Spartali Stillman (1843-1927)." National Museums Liverpool. Web. 18 February 2020. NB The artist's generally accepted date of birth was 10 March 1844. This site also has a different interpretation of the scene in the globe.

Marsh, Jan. "'The Old Tuscan Rapture': The Response to Italy and Its Art in the Work of Marie Spartali Stillman." In Unfolding the South: Nineteenth Century British Women Writersand Artists in Italy. Edited by Ann Chapman and Jane Stabler. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. 159-82.

Created 18 February 2020