Artist's Model. A painter and sculptor in her own right, she is more remembered for the numerous images created by Pre-Raphaelite painters. Born Marie Terpsithea Cassavetti to Greek nobility, wealth, and high position she was a noted beauty, known along with her cousins Aglaia Coronio and Marie Spartali as one of the "Three Graces", but was also apparently a rather rude and unpleasant girl who tended to scare away young men initially attracted by her looks. At around 16 Maria married a Dr. Zambaco and moved to Paris but when the marriage flopped she returned home, dumped her two children onto her mother, and began to study painting. She posed for such noted painters as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James A. McNeill Whistler and in 1866 launched a turbulent personal and professional relationship with Edward Burne-Jones who rendered her image numerous times. Things came to a head in 1869 with Burne-Jones making a show of leaving his wife and Maria putting on a public suicide gesture via laudamum once she realized the leaving was only a show. In later years she studied painting at the Slade School and maintained a studio next to that of Burne-Jones who reportedly never spoke to her though he frequently used her as a seductress in his paintings. Trained by Rodin, Maria became a sculptor in Paris and at her death was buried in her family's plot under her maiden name.
Artist's Model. A painter and sculptor in her own right, she is more remembered for the numerous images created by Pre-Raphaelite painters. Born Marie Terpsithea Cassavetti to Greek nobility, wealth, and high position she was a noted beauty, known along with her cousins Aglaia Coronio and Marie Spartali as one of the "Three Graces", but was also apparently a rather rude and unpleasant girl who tended to scare away young men initially attracted by her looks. At around 16 Maria married a Dr. Zambaco and moved to Paris but when the marriage flopped she returned home, dumped her two children onto her mother, and began to study painting. She posed for such noted painters as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and James A. McNeill Whistler and in 1866 launched a turbulent personal and professional relationship with Edward Burne-Jones who rendered her image numerous times. Things came to a head in 1869 with Burne-Jones making a show of leaving his wife and Maria putting on a public suicide gesture via laudamum once she realized the leaving was only a show. In later years she studied painting at the Slade School and maintained a studio next to that of Burne-Jones who reportedly never spoke to her though he frequently used her as a seductress in his paintings. Trained by Rodin, Maria became a sculptor in Paris and at her death was buried in her family's plot under her maiden name.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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