used her time in Italy to work on paintings such as The Boys' Crusade and La Veneziana, a portrait of a Venetian lady. In addition to her own artistic practice at this time, Boyce also continued a lifelong practice of seeking out and analyzing the artwork of her contemporaries. Boyce published some of this analysis as art criticism in the Saturday Review, wherein she lauded the "sincerity" and principles of the Pre-Raphaelite art movement, and noted the positive influence of John Ruskin on the English art world. Final years Boyce's later works include Head of a Mulatto Woman, a portrait of Jamaican immigrant and popular artists' model Fanny Eaton. Boyce died on 15 July 1861, after the birth of her third child. Her last completed painting, A Bird of God, was left on her easel. Legacy At the time of her death, contemporaries remarked on Boyce's talent as an artist: Dante Gabriel Rossetti described her as "a wonderfully gifted woman", and another obituarist called her a genius. Later critics have observed that Boyce’s reputation was somewhat constrained by her early death, but her art has been highlighted in exhibitions up until the present day. One early posthumous exhibition was held in the Tate in 1935. Select artworks by Boyce, along with portraits by and of other women significant to the Pre-Raphaelite movement, were exhibited in London’s National Portrait Gallery in 2019 in an exhibit entitled "Pre-Raphaelite Sisters". Not all of Boyce's artworks survive, as some were destroyed in bombings during World War II. Despite Boyce’s frequently mentioned association with the Pre-Raphaelite movement, commentators have noted that Boyce was not simply an acolyte of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The art historian Pamela Gerrish Nunn notes that Boyce drew comparisons to the Venetian old masters from contemporary critics. Writer Simon Poë additionally observes that Boyce's time at Couture's atelier impacted her work with influences from the Classical Academic and Romantic traditions. Gallery See also English women painters from the early 19th century who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art Sophie Gengembre Anderson Mary Baker Ann Charlotte Bartholomew Maria Bell Barbara Bodichon Margaret Sarah Carpenter Fanny Corbaux Rosa Corder Mary Ellen Edwards Harriet Gouldsmith Mary Harrison (artist) Jane Benham Hay Anna Mary Howitt Mary Moser Martha Darley Mutrie Ann Mary Newton Emily Mary Osborn Kate Perugini Louise Rayner Ellen Sharples Rolinda Sharples Rebecca Solomon Elizabeth Emma Soyer Isabelle de Steiger Henrietta Ward References