English art critic John Ruskin once wrote that she possessed “a quite heavenly gift of genius in a kind I had never before seen”; American diplomat John Lothrop Motley called her a “person of unquestionable genius.” Today, Francesca Alexander is not well known, but in the late 1800s, her artworks and acts of charity were celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic. Historian Jacqueline Marie Musacchio’s thoughtful biography The Art and Life of Francesca Alexander 1837–1917 (2025) brings the artist’s story out of the shadows and illuminates the fascinating cross-cultural context in which she worked.
Like Alexander herself, her drawings, paintings, and books have a quiet subtlety that captures an American woman’s insider view of Tuscany in the late 19th century, when both Italy and the world were on the precipice of great change. Born in Boston in 1837 as the only child of a well-to-do family, her father was a successful portrait painter who likely helped foster his daughter’s artistic talent, though she never received formal training. When Alexander was 16 years old, the family relocated to Florence, Italy. Musacchio emphasizes the notable differences between the Alexanders and other affluent 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 fluent Italian and maintained close ties with Italians of all stripes, from political and cultural elites to those struggling with poverty.
This latter group was especially important to Alexander. Friends and visitors often commented on her exceptional relationships with the Italian contadini, or peasants, who were the artist’s friends and models. Musacchio shrewdly anticipates the reader’s skepticism, writing that “today her activities might be seen as indicative of a savior complex” but insisting “her empathy was genuine and her charity was essential for those who received it.” For decades, Alexander drew portraits of these individuals, wrote extensive biographies of them, and recorded their traditional stories and songs. Alexander’s first major publication, The Story of Ida (1883), related the life and early death of a young seamstress friend, while her longtime friendship with the folk improvisatrice singer Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani inspired Tuscan Songs, an expansive bilingual songbook with drawings and musical notations. She solicited donations from wealthy friends abroad and used sales from her artworks and publications to provide money, food, clothing, medicine, and other necessities to those around her in need. Musacchio clarifies throughout the book that although Alexander took her eventual fame in her stride, it was never her goal.
Musacchio’s critical eye is especially crucial in rendering the role of Ruskin, who approached Alexander with what she calls an “almost predatory enthusiasm.” Ruskin became infatuated with Alexander after their first meeting in Florence in 1882, and his promotion and publication of her work sparked her rise to fame in both the US and the UK. Musacchio details the problematics of Ruskin’s methods: He made extreme edits and elisions to her work, refused to pay her any proceeds from the sale of her books, and referred to her in letters and lectures as a “girl” despite the fact that she was 45 years old when they met.
One of the most enjoyable parts of the book is an excerpt from an 1883 letter to a friend about the hordes of curious and sometimes rude people who flooded into Alexander’s studio after Ruskin’s attentions. In this snippet, the artist — who never married or left her parents’ home — shows herself to be witty and clever, defying those who mischaracterized her as childlike and inexperienced.
By the time of her death in 1917, Modernism was taking hold in European art and World War I was taking its toll. Alexander’s delicate figurative drawings and elite expatriate way of life were no longer in style. “Francesca says we have outlived our world, and belong to another century,” her long-lived mother wrote in a 1906 letter. Nonetheless, the artist made her own humble mark. As she noted in her preface to Tuscan Songs, “I have done my best to save a little of what is passing away.”
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 through independent booksellers.
