George Frederic Watts, O.M., R.A. 1817-1904

Aglaia Coronio was the second child and eldest daughter of Alexander Constantine and Euterpe Ionides, and was born in 1834. In the group portrait of the Ionides family (sold in these rooms, 7 June 2005, lot 6, and now in the Watts Museum at Compton, near Guildford), she is shown as the child who puts her arms around her mother’s neck. She married Theodore Coronio, who was also a member of the Anglo-Greek business community based in London, in about 1855. Aglaia and Theodore Coronio had one daughter, Calliope, who was herself painted by Watts. The present portrait seems to have been painted in the 1870s, when Aglaia was about forty years old. She died in 1906.

Admired for her great beauty and for her intense artistic sensibility, Aglaia was the friend of many painters, designers and musicians. She was also painted by Edward Burne-Jones, appearing as one of the dancing figures in the figurative landscape The Mill (the other two girls are Maria Zambaco and Marie Spartali), a work which belonged to Aglaia’s brother Constantine and which is now part of the Ionides collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. In addition she assisted Burne-Jones by suggesting other models that he might use in his paintings, and by advising on props and fabrics to be introduced. She was also a friend of William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Watts’s portrait of her has a fleeting quality, as if she has only momentarily turned her head to allow a glimpse of her features. The painting conveys her beauty, but also something of her psychological fragility.

CSN