The English art critic John Ruskin one day wrote that she had “a fairly celestial gift of genius in a kind that I had never seen before”; American diplomat John Lothrop Motley called her “an undeniable genius”. Today, Francesca Alexander is not well known, but in the late 1800s, his works of art and her acts of charity were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. The thoughtful biography of the historian Jacqueline Marie Musacchio The art and life of Francesca Alexander 1837–1917 (2025) sorts out the story of the shadow artist and illuminates the fascinating intercultural context in which she worked.
Like Alexander herself, her drawings, paintings and books have a silent subtlety that captures the vision of initiates of an American woman on Tuscany at the end of the 19th century, when Italy and the world were on the precipice of a great change. Born in Boston in 1837 as the only child of a wealthy family, his father was a painter portrait who probably helped to promote the artistic talent of her daughter, although she never received a formal training. When Alexander was 16, the family moved to Florence, Italy. Musacchio emphasizes the notable differences between the Alexanders and other wealthy American expatriates living in Italy at the time: while many of their peers remained in English-speaking enclaves and held classist and anti-Catholic views, the Alexanders spoke to a fluid Italian and kept close ties with Italians of all bands, political elites and cultural elites These efforts with the Italians.
The latter group was particularly important for Alexandre. Friends and visitors have often commented on its exceptional relationships with Italian farmersOr peasants, who were the artist's friends and models. Musacchio strongly anticipates the reader's skepticism, writing that “today its activities could be considered indicative of a savior complex”, but insisting that “its empathy was authentic and that its charity was essential for those who received it”. For decades, Alexander drew portraits of these individuals, wrote vast biographies and recorded their traditional stories and songs. Alexander's first major publication, The story of Ida (1883), said the premature life and death of a young seamstress friend, while her longtime friendship with folk improvisation The singer Beatrice of Pian Degli Ontani inspired Tuscan songsA large book of bilingual songs with drawings and musical ratings. She asked for donations from rich friends abroad and used sales of her works of art and publications to provide money, food, clothes, medicines and other necessities to those surrounding her in need. Musacchio clarifies throughout the book that although Alexandre took its possible fame in its stride, it was never its objective.
Musacchio's critical eye is particularly crucial in making the role of Ruskin, who approached Alexandre with what she calls “almost predatory enthusiasm”. Ruskin became passionate about Alexandre after their first meeting in Florence in 1882, and her promotion and publication of his work sparked his fame in the United States and the United Kingdom. Musacchio details the problem of Ruskin's methods: he made extreme modifications and elements to his work, refused to pay him any product of the sale of his books, and referred it to letters and conferences as “girl” despite the fact that she was 45 years old when they met.
One of the most pleasant parts of the book is an extract from a letter of 1883 to a friend on the hordes of curious and sometimes rude people who flooded Alexander's studio after Ruskin's attention. In this extract, the artist – who has never got married or who has left his parents' house – shows himself as a spirits and intelligent, defying those who have erroneous as childish and inexperienced.
At the time of his death in 1917, modernism settled in European art and the First World War, wreaked havoc. The delicate figurative drawings of Alexander and the lifestyle of elite expatriates were no longer in style. “Francesca says that we have survived our world and that we belong to another century,” wrote his longtime mother in a letter from 1906. Nevertheless, the artist has made his own humble brand. As she noted in her preface to Tuscan songs“I did my best to save a little of what died.”
The art and life of Francesca Alexander 1837–1917 (2025) by Jacqueline Marie Musacchio is published by Lund Humphries Publishers and is available online and via independent booksellers.
