COSWAY, MARIA.  The artist known by this name was born Maria Hadfield, the daughter of an Englishman who acquired a fortune as a hotel-keeper in Leghorn, which was Maria’s birthplace.  She was educated in a convent, and early manifesting unusual artistic ability, was sent to Rome to study painting.  Her friends there, among whom were Battoni, Raphael Mengs, and Fuseli, found much to admire and praise in her art.

After her father’s death Maria ardently desired to become a nun, but her mother persuaded her to go to England.  Here she came under the influence of Angelica Kauffman, and devoted herself assiduously to painting.

She married Richard Cosway, an eminent painter of miniatures in water-colors.  Cosway was a man of fortune with a good position in the fashionable circles of London.  For a time after their marriage Maria lived in seclusion, her husband wishing her to acquire the dignity and grace requisite for success in the society which he frequented.  Meantime she continued to paint in miniature, and her pictures attracted much attention in the Academy exhibitions.

When at length Cosway introduced her to the London world, she was greatly admired; her receptions were crowded, and the most eminent people sat to her for their portraits.  Her picture of the Duchess of Devonshire in the character of Spenser’s Cynthia was very much praised.  Cosway did not permit her to be paid for her work, and as a consequence many costly gifts were made her in return for her miniatures, which were regarded as veritable treasures by their possessors.

Maria Cosway had a delicious voice in singing, which, in addition to her other talent, her beauty, and grace, made her unusually popular in society, and her house was a centre for all who had any pretensions to a place in the best circles.  Poets, authors, orators, lords, ladies, diplomats, as well as the Prince of Wales, were to be seen in her drawing-rooms.  A larger house was soon required for the Cosways, and the description of it in “Nollekens and His Times” is interesting: 

“Many of the rooms were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a poet’s fancy, than anything perhaps before displayed in a domestic habitation.  Escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and rich caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled and adorned with onyx, opals, rubies, and emeralds; cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic tables, set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis-lazuli, their feet carved into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised Oriental Japan; massive musical clocks, richly chased with ormulu and tortoise-shell; ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets, with corresponding hearth-rugs bordered with ancient family crests and armorial ensigns in the centre, and rich hangings of English tapestry.  The carved chimney-pieces were adorned with the choicest bronzes and models in wax and terra-cotta.  The tables were covered with Sevres, blue Mandarin, Nankin, and Dresden china, and the cabinets were surmounted with crystal cups, adorned with the York and Lancaster roses, which might have graced the splendid banquets of the proud Wolsey.”