Marie Spartali Stillman (British, 1844-1927)
The last sight of Fiammetta
'Above her garland and her golden hair I saw a flame about Fiammetta's head' (Boccaccio)
signed with monogram (lower right), inscribed on an exhibition label (attached to the reverse)
watercolour, bodycolour and gum arabic
82 x 62cm (32 5/16 x 24 7/16in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 11 April 1967.
With Abbott and Holder Ltd., London.
Eric Smith (purchased from the above circa 1968).
By family descent.
Private collection, UK (gifted to the present owner, 2004).

Exhibited
London, Royal Academy, 1876, no. 757.
Manchester, Royal Manchester Institution, Exhibition of the Works of Modern Artists, 1876.
Paris, Universal Exhibition, 1878, British Fine Art Section.

The present lot has not been seen in public for decades, so it represents a welcome addition to the Stillman's oeuvre, at a moment when her reputation is rising.

The finely painted fanciful half-length figure depicts a girl no older than early teens, wearing a rose-garland on her loose hair, who dreamily fingers a rose-entwined mandolin. The feeling is of harmony and repose. Art historian Pamela Gerrish Nunn declared of the work that it 'is surely destined to be regarded as her masterpiece [sic]'.

Moreover, it belongs in a sequence of events consolidating the mutual regard between Spartali Stillman and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, as it prompted the last major canvas from the latter before his death in 1882. As observed in the 1989 publication Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, the existence of the present work was then known only from old exhibition catalogue listings.

The exhibiting history of the work began at the Royal Academy in 1876. At the time, the significance of this work to Rossetti is indicated by the fact that, eighteen months after the exhibition, he asked Spartali to sit for him for his own version of Fiammetta. Since her reputation as a model has tended to obscure her career as an artist and since she is typically said to owe her pictorial inspiration entirely to Rossetti, it is worth noting that in this case her choice of subject evidently stimulated his own, and that by 'casting' Marie as Fiammetta, so to speak, Rossetti implicitly recognised her choice of the theme.

***

Stillman and Rossetti met in the early 1860s, when she decided to pursue art practice, and through her father sought tuition from Rossetti. Given his lack of aptitude, Rossetti sensibly passed the request to Ford Madox Brown, who from 1864 welcomed her for twice-weekly sessions alongside his own children. Brown then encouraged her exhibition debut at the Dudley Gallery in 1867, and became a lifelong artistic mentor. She continued to exhibit after her marriage in 1871 to the American journalist, William Stillman, whose career as a foreign correspondent took the family to postings in Greece (Corfu) and Italy.

In winter 1874-5 they visited the US, where her exhibited works were commended by Henry James in Atlantic Monthly and Galaxy. Back in Britain, when not overseas she divided her time between her parents' homes in Clapham and the Isle of Wight.

Following his paranoid collapse in 1872, Rossetti stayed mainly at Kelmscott Manor, the secluded country home he leased jointly with William Morris, until in summer 1874 he returned to his London home in Cheyne Walk, and to his art practice. His translations from early Italian poetry, first published in 1861, were re-arranged and re-issued this year. The volume includes examples of Boccaccio's poetry, 'chosen for their beauty alone. Two of these relate to Maria d'Aquino, if she indeed be the lady whom, in his writings, he calls Fiammetta.' More probably, this was a fictive inamorata, the same name – 'little flame' – being given to the protagonist in Boccaccio's Elegy of Madonna Fiammetta, lamenting a faithless lover. Rossetti also used the title for a 'pot-boiler' executed around the same time as Monna Vanna and offered to George Boyce in December 1866.

The present work is the first of Stillman's based on Rossetti's translations from Boccaccio, where a sonnet entitled 'The Last Sight of Fiammetta' describes what seems to be the death of the beloved:

Round her red garland and her golden hair
I saw a fire about Fiammetta's head;
Thence to a little cloud I watch'd it fade,
Than silver or than gold more brightly fair;
And like a pearl that a gold ring doth bear,
Even so an angel sat therein, who sped
Alone and glorious throughout heaven, array'd
In sapphires and in gold that lit the air.
Then I rejoiced as hoping happy things,
Who rather should have then discern'd how God
Had haste to make my lady all his own,
Even as it came to pass. And with these stings
Of sorrow, and with life's most weary load
I dwell, who fain would be where she is gone.

In 1875 the artist sold a Renaissance-style image of her stepdaughter Lisa Stillman under the title Mona Lisa (Royal Academy, 1875, no. 719; Manchester, 1875, 40gns; untraced). So, looking forward to the 1876 exhibition season, a comparable theme was chosen for the present work, borrowing again from Boccaccio/Rossetti and in all likelihood using eleven-year-old Lisa as model. The chosen genre was that described by William Rossetti – pejoratively but accurate - as 'lovely ladies with floral accessories'; derived from Lely's Hampton Court beauties, this format became newly popular and saleable in the late nineteenth century.

On 7 January 1876, Stillman ordered from the art suppliers, Robersons, a support of similar dimensions – 31 by 21 ins – prepared to her specifications with board covered in three sheets of paper – two cartridge and one seamless Whatman. This was likely for Fiammetta, because although Stillman was a painstaking artist who typically took a year or more to complete an exhibition piece, the present work has been enlarged with additional strips along the left side and lower edge. While not exact, this surely relates to her Robersons' order on 11 March, for '2 slips of wood fitted with [indecipherable] to fix on edges of drawing board covering with two surfaces of paper', at a cost of four shillings.

The brushwork is notably delicate on the figure and mandolin, looser on the upper foliage and very much looser on the added strips. An undated letter from Rossetti to Brown mentions that the frame, with its reeded edge and 'Pre-Raphaelite' roundels, cost £3.10s. So, the enlargement probably relates to the availability of this frame.

The picture was submitted to the RA in April. Accepted and hung, it was catalogued as 'no. 757 / The last sight of Fiammetta / Above her garland and her golden hair / I saw a flame about Fiammetta's head. – Boccaccio.' It was listed under the name 'Miss M.S.Stillman'.

Amidst the scores of landscapes and still lifes in this section, it was favourably commended by W.M. Rossetti in his role as art critic, as 'one of the genuinely fine works of colour in the exhibition – warm, soft, pure flesh tints, admirably supported by the general colour scheme, the copper-yellow hair garlanded with red and pink roses, the charmingly-painted mandoline, the embowering foliage.'

The overall standard at the RA that year was however not the most commendable. In 1877 Sir Coutts Lindsay launched his rival fine art show at the Grosvenor Gallery, and maybe on the strength of Fiammetta, Marie Stillman was one of two women invited to exhibit at the inaugural exhibition. Subsequently it was selected for the British Fine Art section of the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1878.

Around this time, it was photographed and reproduced as a large-size sepia print, one copy being in the Bancroft Collection at Delaware Art Museum.

The work also prompted Rossetti to renewed effort, despite poor health and very low spirits. Having spent the late summer of 1877 in seclusion at Herne Bay, in such a sick state he was 'unable to hold a brush', within a few weeks he now asked Marie to model for his new work before she departed to join Stillman in Corfu. Her Fiammetta seems to have been the spur, because his own painting was also to depict Boccaccio's beloved. Marie sat on 23-24 and 27-28 November, arriving each day at 11.00am and leaving by 4.00pm. Now that Janey Morris (who was wintering in Italy) was unavailable, Mrs Stillman was 'the only person who wd [sic] have in any degree suited me for ideal subjects', he told Jane. Moreover, he added: 'I have finished the head of the picture – 'Fiammetta', from Boccaccio's sonnet on his last sight of her – and it is far better than I ever painted from anyone but yourself. She has given me the sittings most kindly under great difficulties – her own little girl having had an accident and broken her collarbone'.

Rossetti did not admit that he had adopted Stillman's own title, and as if to re-appropriate the subject was painting it much larger and with greater flamboyance. He had some 'flame-coloured' silk for the drapery and planned to fill the surrounding space with pink-tinged apple-blossom.

This too seems to have been prompted by her work. She had arranged for Rossetti to appraise two recent pieces, one being the present work. On 5 December, he wrote: 'I have been looking at your pictures with great interest, pending our looking at these together when you come. The Fiammetta is quite complete in effect at a distance – always a leading necessity: when near, the painting shows the difficulty there inevitably is in working water-colour on so large a scale; & from this point of view I should pronounce it less satisfactory than your smaller-scale works.' This judicious assessment, one may say, accurately reflects the impact of the picture overall, and the visual disjunction between the precision of the figure and the surrounding sketchiness. However, this intentionally focusses attention on the former and in fact enhances the large format.

The second picture was a comparable 'life-size half-length' figure with 'elaborate and sometimes excellent imitative painting in the floral accessories' (the popular format Rossetti also favoured.) In this work, he continued, 'the apple blossom, though beautifully studied, is not made to subserve pictorial needs sufficiently: & the whole work is more absolutely 'pre-Raphaelite' than I should have expected from you'.

Unless the apple blossom picture was the now unlocated 'Bloom Time' exhibited by Stillman at the Dudley Gallery earlier in the year, it remains unidentified.

Is it coincidence that, having seen these two pictures by Stillman, Rossetti decided to amalgamate both her motifs into his own painting of Fiammetta embowered in apple blossom? He added Boccaccio's fiery aureole and a small red bird, giving his work a Symbolist quality very different from Stillman's delicate naturalism.

A final sitting for his Fiammetta took place on 11 December 1877 and on 19 December Marie called with the three Stillman girls to say goodbye. For the sake of his physical and mental health she urged Rossetti to join them in Italy, also offering to pose. Such sittings would be precious, he told Jane Morris, and in exchange he could helpfully advise on her practice. But he was far too frail for such travels, and so the possibility of mutual artistic support closed.

Rossetti's Vision of Fiammetta was bought by businessman W. A. Turner, and the first opportunity Stillman will have had to see its finished state was at the Rossetti retrospective exhibition at the RA in 1883. Her own painting sold, priced at 40 guineas in Britain and 80 francs in Paris, although the purchaser is unidentifiably named as G. E. Smith. And the artist subsequently found in Rossetti's translations of Boccaccio's verse a rewarding seam of subjects. The present work was followed by the complex figure group, Fiammetta Singing (Grosvenor Gallery, 1879, no. 158; Sotheby's, London, 15 November 2011, lot 75) and By a Clear Well, within a little Field illustrating the sonnet 'Of Three Girls and their Talk' (Grosvenor Gallery, 1884, no. 368; ex-Hartnoll).

The present work thus occupies a distinguished place in Stillman's oeuvre, and a creative one in regard to Rossetti's career.

References
W. E. Fredeman et al, The Collected letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1980- 9 vols; letters to Jane Morris 2 December 1877 (77.159), 19 December 1877 (77.175) and to Marie Stillman 5 December 1877 (77.163).
J. Marsh & P. Gerrish Nunn, Women Artists and the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, 1989, p. 103.
J. Marsh, Pre-Raphaelite Sisters, NPG 2019.
Robersons Archive, Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge.
D. G. Rossetti, Dante and his Circle, 1874.
W. M. Rossetti, 'Royal Academy exhibition', The Academy, 27 May 1876, p. 541.
Royal Academy of Arts, exhibition catalogue, Summer 1876, no. 32.
K. A. Shepherd, 'Marie Spartali Stillman, A Study of the Life and Career of a Pre-Raphaelite Artist', BA Thesis, George Washington University, May 1998, p. 146.
V. Surtees, Dante Gabriel Rossetti Paintings and Drawings, catalogue raisonné, Oxford, 1971, volume 1, no. 192.

We are grateful to Dr Jan Marsh for compiling this catalogue entry.
For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com

Not examined out of frame.
This work comprises of three parts. The main painting is on the larger support (78 × 59.5 cm) and there are two extension strips, one is to the left and one on the lower edge - these could have been added to fit the frame. There is retouching along the joins which has small amounts of paint loss. The support for this painting is likely to have been specially made for Stillman by C. Roberson. There is a small area of loss in the join at the edge of the main support, lower right. On the main support, the prepared paper curves around the edge of the board and is not discoloured. The surface of the prepared paper has been primed with Gesso.
The surface of the paint is in good condition, there are a couple of small areas on the mandolin where the ground has broken down, these have been restored. There is a little oxidising of the paint on the body of the mandolin. One of the leaves and a rose near her hair on the right have slight paint loss from flaking gum. There are some small light foxing marks on her face and chest.