Maria Zambaco, born Marie Terpsithea Cassavetti, was a British artist and model of Greek descent.
Background
Maria was a daughter of wealthy Anglo-Hellenic merchant Demetrios Cassavetti (d1858) and his wife Euphrosyne (1822–1896) and niece of the Greek Consul and noted patron Alexander Constantine Ionides. After inheriting her father"s fortune in 1858, she was able to lead a more independent life and was known to go unchaperoned while still unmarried.
Education
Maria dedicated herself to art, and studied at the Slade School under Alphonse Legros and under Auguste Rodin in Paris.
Career
She was favoured by the Pre-Raphaelites. She worked as a sculptor in the 1880s and The British Museum holds four of her medals that she donated, depicting the heads of young girls. British Museum holdings: Museum numbersMedal 1 1887,1207.1, Medal 2 1887,0209.1 and Medals 3 and 4 1887,0209.2.
She exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1887 and the 1889 Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society in London.
She exhibited at the Paris Salon as well. Familiar within the circles of the Pre-Raphaelites for her dark red hair and pale skin, her most notable modelling was for the British artist Edward Burne-Jones.
She also sat as a model for the American Whistler and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. She died in Paris in 1914 and her body was returned for interment in the family sarcophagus at the Greek Orthodox necropolis of the South Metropolitan Cemetery at Norwood, where she is recorded under her maiden name.