A Portrait of Edith Maryon, Artist and Anthroposophist

The lost and last portrait of Edith Maryon, 1872-1924, presented in the present paper, was painted by the, Italian/Australian artist Ernesto Genoni, 1885-1975, at Dornach in 1924. Maryon was appointed by Rudolf, Steiner, 1861-1925, at the Christmas Conference of the Anthroposophy Society, December 1923, as the, leader of the Section for Sculptural Arts, akna Fine Art, . She was an English sculptor who worked with, Steiner to create the massive timber sculpture, ‘The Representative of Humanity’, now on display in the, Goetheanum, the headquarters of the Anthroposophical Society, at Dornach, Switzerland. Ernesto Genoni, trained at the renowned Brera Academy of Fine Art in Milan. He first met Maryon in 1920 on his first visit, to Dornach. Genoni returned to Dornach at about the time of the Christmas Conference, he successfully applied to Steiner to be in the inaugural First Class of the School of Spiritual Science., Genoni remained in Dornach for most of the year 1924. Edith Maryon died on 2 May 1924 reportedly of, tuberculosis, TB, . Genoni left Dornach only after Steiner withdrew from public life and retreated to his sick, bed, on 28 September 1924, . Genoni took the art that he had created at Dornach back to Milan, Italy, and, some of it went on to Australia when he emigrated in 1926. Genoni’s portrait of Maryon has remained in, the Genoni family in Milan since that time but with the subject long forgotten, or perhaps never known to, the family, . Genoni painted portraits of significant women in his life, including his sister Rosa and his niece, Fanny, in Milan, and his partner Ileen Macpherson and his niece Anne Fiedler, in Melbourne, Australia, . The portrait of this paper, is now identified as of Edith Maryon, thereby reuniting the artwork, with its subject, and dating it in the last four months of Maryon’s life, January to April 1924, .,

Keywords: Anthroposophy, sculptor, Brera Academy of Fine Art, Milan, Dornach, Switzerland, How-Old.net