Marcus ("Mark") Waterman (1 September 1834 – 2 April 1914) was an American painter, mainly of landscapes[1] and Orientalist subjects.

[2] In 1874, Waterman accompanied a group of painters including Hunt on a sketching trip along the Massachusetts coast, and as a result soon resettled in Boston.

[1] At some point early in his tenure in Boston, Waterman began a romantic relationship with artist's model, costumer and Italian language teacher, Marietta Ambrosi, that lasted the rest of his life.

Maria “Marietta” Giacinta Massimigliana Ambrosi was born in 1852 in the northeastern Italian city of Rovereto, which at that time was a municipality in the County of Tyrol in the Austrian Empire.

She was an especial favorite with Falero, the Spanish painter.”[6] Back in Boston in 1884, she set up shop as teacher and translator of Italian and French in the same building as Waterman[11] and soon became “a good deal of a pet among the artists [...] Her naturalness – her genuineness – appealed to Mark Waterman from the beginning [...] And there is no doubt but she brought a great deal of sunshine into the life of this quiet man years before they were married.

[4] Boston Globe art editor A. J. Philpott wrote in his obituary: Mark Waterman was a proud man and considerable of a recluse […] Yet, though dignified and reserved to strangers, [… he] was always cheerful, companionable and helpful to those who knew him well and had his confidence.

Many artists when sorely troubled in their work benefited by his sympathetic and helpful advice and by the free-will offering of the results of his own studies and experiences.

If there is any survivor of the scores of painters who were friends of mine in New York some fifty years ago, he will oblige me by taking the said painting & giving it a good glaze of ivory black, wiping out a spot somewhere & thus converting it into a Whistler.

[2] It was already noted during his career that his paintings, though praised by critics, were out of step with trends in the contemporary artistic scene; within three years of his death his work was described as "old-fashioned" when it was shown in Boston.