Page:Women in the Fine Arts From the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentiet.djvu/271

184 her azure eyes, so placid and so bright, charmed you with an expression it is impossible to write ; unless you had known her you could not understand how eloquent were her looks."

Her English friends belonged to the most cultivated circles, many of them being also of high rank. Artists united to do her honor — showing no professional envy and making no opposition to her election to the Academy. Many interesting incidents in her association with London artists are related, and it is said that both Fuseli and Sir Joshua Reynolds were unsuccessful suitors for her hand. Miss Thackeray, in her novel, "Miss Angel," makes Angelica an attractive heroine.

The royal family were much interested in her, and the mother of the King visited her—an honor never before accorded to an artist—and the Princess of Brunswick gave her commissions for several pictures.

De Rossi says that her letters at this time were those of a person at the summit of joy and tranquillity. She was able to save money and looked hopefully forward to a time when she could make a home for her unthrifty father. But this happy prosperity was suddenly cut short by her own imprudence.

After refusing many eligible offers of marriage, she was secretly married to an adventurer who personated the Count de Horn, and succeeded by plausible falsehoods in convincing her that it was necessary, for good reasons, to conceal their marriage. One day when painting a portrait of Queen Charlotte, who was very friendly to the artist, Angelica was moved to confide the secret of her marriage