Dorothy Dene (1859/1860 – 27 December 1899), born Ada Alice Pullen, was an English stage actress and artist's model for the painter Frederick Leighton and some of his associates.

[2] According to a story published in 1897, Leighton chose her as the one woman in Europe whose face and figure most closely tallied with his ideal.

Leighton searched Europe for a model suitable for his 1884 painting Cymon and Iphigenia, eventually finding Dene in a theatre in London.

He remained a bachelor and, according to art historian Richard Louis Ormond who together with his wife Leonée wrote Leighton's biography, acknowledged he "fulfilled some part of himself in the company of young men".

[10] Leighton assisted Dene in her acting career; educating her and introducing her to "fashionable society",[10] and it has been speculated that George Bernard Shaw "drew upon their relationship" for his play Pygmalion.

[10][12] At his death, he left her £5,000, plus another £5,000 in trust for herself and her sisters (this was the equivalent of around one million pounds today), which was by far the largest bequest he made.

[6] In late 1892, Dene traveled to the United States[14] and in New York City she performed in a play produced by the Theater of Arts and Letters.