When her husband's mental health began to fail, she moved with him and their surviving son to Brittany, returning to England after his death in 1827.
Settling in the spa town of Leamington, she built up a clientele as a teacher of drawing, painting and wax modelling, with her reputation became national in 1830 when she was given the court post of fruit and flower painter to the new Queen Adelaide.
Living close to Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1835 she produced a book of hand-coloured lithographs called Relics of Shakespeare[5] and her work was shown outside England at the Royal Scottish Academy in 1837.
Last shown at the Royal Academy in 1854,[3] she died in Edinburgh on 11 December 1863 during a visit to her nephew Charles Piazzi Smyth and his wife Jessie.
Relics of Shakespeare, from drawings by Mrs. Denis Dighton, by appointment fruit and flower painter to Her Majesty the Queen.