Art on My Mind: Marie Spartali Stillman's Love's Messenger

Weeks ago I added a new gadget to my blog, with a painting I've been thinking about. I mean to update this regularly, but figured I should first tell you why I have been thinking about Marie Spartali Stillman and Love's Messenger. Stillman was a nineteenth-century painter influenced and inspired by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in England who created canvases featuring lone woman in medieval or Renaissance settings (much like Dante Gabriel Rossetti). A beautiful member of London's Greek community, she also frequently posed for other artists. I almost wrote my dissertation on her at that Ivy League school, but didn't (and that's a long story). Anyway, with thoughts of teaching again and discussions of grad school with Gorgon, I got to thinking about Stillman again. Hence, the painting on my blog's sidebar. The Delaware Art Museum has quite a collection of her works, though I can't recall if I've actually seen this one in person. I've never researched it (the diss was squashed in the early stages), and so can't provide any real illumination of the generalized romantic subject or particular symbols, beyond that the cupid/Eros/angel on which she is stitching is strongly reminiscent of the figures of Edward Burne-Jones.