Flowers in a Blue and White Bowl

Mary Elizabeth Duffield was the daughter of the Bath based landscape painter and miniaturist Thomas Elliot Rosenberg. A flower painter of great talent, she married the still life artist William Duffield in 1850. After winning a silver medal from the Society of Arts at the age of 15, she went on to exhibit her flower paintings from 1848 to 1912 at the Royal Academy, Grosvenor Gallery, Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours and elsewhere. In 1856 she published The Art of Flower Painting, which ran into several editions. She was elected a member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours in 1861. She is represented in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum. She is sometimes incorrectly referred to as Mary Ann Duffield.