Ricciardo Meacci

[2] He is more widely-known, however, for his compressed but florid watercolour and gouache images of Christian devotional subjects, and moralized, allegorical scenes upon classical and romantic themes, original in composition but making reference to the Sienese quattrocento.

These formal paintings, often conceived as triptychs, were cased in ornamental frames of modelled plaster, gilt, and applied pilaster arcading, and with openwork carving or finials, combining techniques and materials after the manner of the Arts and Crafts movement.

Willard, noting that Mussini impressed his Pre-Raphaelite tendencies upon his students (including Franchi), saw in Meacci's work an "almost literal reproduction" of the style of Edward Burne-Jones.

[7] Meacci told Helen Zimmern that his intense interest in the quattrocento artists, and his attempts to master their techniques, was fostered after he left Mussini, by Charles Fairfax Murray.

[1] Murray, in fact, had been studio assistant to Burne-Jones in 1867, was a friend and associate of William Morris, and lived in Florence studying north Italian art, working as a copyist for John Ruskin, between 1872 and 1882.

[8] The greater part of Meacci's work is to be found in the churches and mansions of Siena, where it may be seen in the context of the artists from whom he drew inspiration, such as Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino or Pinturicchio.