Hera by Marie Spartali Stillman

Marie Spartali Stillman’s painting Hera, which although not ‘lost’ has remained fairly unknown,   features in the forthcoming exhibition Artful Stories, curated by Nancy Carlisle and Peter Trippi for the Eustis Estate museum in Milton, Boston.  It depicts Hera/Juno, the patronal goddess of marriage and fertility, carrying a pomegranate and a peacock feather, in the standard half-length format that MSS adapted from renaissance and pre-Raphaelite examples for vaguely allegorical figures.

Probably painted in Rome, Hera is likely to have been a gift to Richard and Edith Norton, who were living in Italy.  Richard was the son of Harvard’s Charles Eliot Norton, whom MSS knew through her husband, W.J. Stillman and British friends like Janey Morris. It is signed with MSS’s familiar monogram, and an indecipherable date that could be 1895 or 1905.  The composition and especially horizon are very similar to other works by MSS, notably The Rose in Armida’s Garden (1894) 

and the undated, unfinished Woman with a Dove in the Laing AG, Newcastle.

Some months ago, I was sent a jpeg of the 'new' Hera/Juno, which is that at the top of this post.  One can see the rather nasty crack  running through the support just left of the face.  Happily, the Eustis exhibition has cleaned, conserved and mended the tear, so the painting looks very much better - as here below.