It did, however, appear in the memorial exhibition of the artist's drawings held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in The sitter was Catherine Zanni Mavrocordatou. Marietta, who is said to have received "the finest school education" and had been "renowned for her kindness and delicacy of manners", married Stephen Ralli in London in , and was presumably the Mrs Stephen Ralli who lent the drawings to the BFAC exhibition in , by which time her mother may have been dead.
Mother and daughter have sometimes been confused. A recent book on he Ralli family reproduces the drawing as a likeness of Marietta in her old age.
The Rallis originated in Chios, the Greek island just off the Turkish mainland. They were an enterprising clan, and in the early 19th Century established themselves as traders and financiers far beyond the Aegean. Pandias Ralli was the dominant personality, setting up a business in London which was central to the whole enterprise.
Meanwhile his four brothers created a network of trading contacts, John settling in Odessa, Thomas in Constantinople, Augustus was the father of the Stephen Ralli who became the son-in-law of our sitter. These contacts, moreover, were only part of a much wider association with the group of wealthy and banking families, linked by marriage and commercial interests, who set the pace in London's Anglo-Greek community.
Constantine Ionides, who bequeathed his collections to the Victoria and Albert Museum in With their cousin, the dazzling Maria Zambaco, he conducted a tempestuous affair, while their friend Maria Spartali, another beauty as well as a talented artists, was among his models. The Rallis may not have been so central to his lie but they were certainly in touch with those who were. Alexander Ionides, the father of Constantine and his siblings, had succeeded Pandias Ralli as Greek Consul-General in , and in the s both families seem to have been involved with the buildings of St Sophia, the Greek orthodox church in Moscow Road, Paddington, which Burne-Jones had hopes of decorating.
