The Pre-Raphaelite model and artist, Marie Spartali Stillman, has been commemorated with a blue plaque at her family home in Battersea, English Heritage announced today (21 April). It was during her time living at The Shrubbery (a Grade II listed building dating from the 1770s on what is now Lavender Gardens) that she first modelled for Pre-Raphaelite artists; Edward Burne-Jones; Dante Gabriel Rossetti; and Ford Madox Brown. The Shrubbery’s grand sweep of reception rooms – furnished in a ‘handsome, showy style’ (William Rossetti Diary, 7 May 1885), with French boulle cabinets, large chandeliers, and carved oak and mahogany furniture – would have been the setting for the Spartali family’s weekly entertainments, and it was while living here that Marie established a reputation as a professional artist in her own right. It was her base from which she painted, prepared her works for exhibition, and sent items out for display at the Royal Academy, and galleries in London, Manchester, Liverpool, and the United States.

Art Historian and Blue Plaques Panel Member, Andrew Graham-Dixon, said: “There are only a handful of female artists commemorated by the blue plaques scheme, and Marie Spartali Stillman is actually the first female Pre-Raphaelite artist to receive one.

“She was an extraordinary figure in 19^th-century art, but for a long time, her work was largely unknown. Not because she lacked skill – far from it – but because self-promotion was not considered becoming of a ‘well brought up’ woman. I am delighted that English Heritage is celebrating her with a plaque at her family home in Battersea. Hopefully it will go some way towards bringing her the recognition she deserves.”

While she became renowned for her classic beauty, she was equally admired as painter. Trained by the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Ford Madox Brown, Spartali Stillman was one of only a small number of professional women artists of the late nineteenth century. She worked in a period in which the opportunities for women artists were limited, and when social convention viewed them only as amateurs. She was, however, determined to forge her own career and created a significant body of work – over 150 painting in five decades. Her work is now regularly included in exhibitions about the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

With this new plaque, Marie Spartali Stillman becomes the first female Pre-Raphaelite artist and one of only very few female artists to receive a blue plaque. Other female artists who have been awarded blue plaques include Evelyn de Morgan and Dame Laura Knight, the sculptor Barbara Hepworth, photographer Lee Miller, textile designer Enid Marx and illustrator Kate Greenaway.

The English Heritage London Blue Plaques scheme is generously supported by members of the public.