Marianne Preindlsberger was born in the Austrian province of Styria in 1855. She had ambitions to be an artist from an early age, and a scholarship allowed her to visit Munich and France. This she seems to have done independently, showing her to be a woman of independence and initiative. In 1884 she came to England, where she met, and married the artist Adrian Stokes. They lived in Edwards Square Studios, Kensington, as well as St Ives, and seem to have travelled extensively. There were no children. Marianne Stokes painted biblical scenes, often in tempera, very much like the Birmingham group, which included Gaskin and Southall. Her pictures often gave the effect of being frescoes on old plaster wall surfaces. She exhibited at the Royal Academy, Grosvenor Gallery, New Gallery, and Society of British Artists

The Magazine of Art 1895

By Helene L Postlethwaite

A native of Austria, Mrs Marianne Stokes has, by the establishment of her home in England, almost anglicised herself. Ever since she can remember she wanted to be a become a painter, a desire which at one time did not seem likely to be realised, for in her birthplace few, if any, painters lived. For five years, however, she studied at Munich, and while there gained a recompense the existence of which had a quaint origin. Nearly a century before Mrs Stokes commenced her artistic education, a poor drawing - master died in Styria, leaving his savings amounting only to a few gulden, to accumulate, and be offered as a prize at the end of a hundred years to the most promising Styrian art student. Mrs Stokes, then studying in Munich, was the successful competitor, gaining the prize with her first picture, “Muttergluck.” From Munich Mrs Stokes went to Paris, where she studied under Dagnan Bouveret, Courtois, and Colin. Her first salon picture was painted in Brittany, in 1884, and was called “Reflection.” The second gained a Mention Honorable, and the next year (1885) it was exhibited at the Royal Academy. The same year it was shown at Liverpool, and there found its final resting - place, being purchased by the Trustees for the Permanent Collection. “Madonna, Light of Life,” by which Mrs Stokes was represented at the last Grosvenor Exhibition has again been seen in London this year, at the Guildhall Loan Exhibition, to which it was sent most unwillingly by its owner a lady living in Munich. To the same Guildhall Exhibition, Mr McCulloch, the great Australian collector, also lent Mrs Stokes’ charming little “Goatherd of the Tyrol,” shown at the Institute of 1892, and by many critics considered one of the most perfect pictures at that exhibition. “Angels entertaining the Holy Child,” which was in last year’s ,Academy is now in Vienna, as well as the “Hail Mary,” exhibited at Burlington House in 1890, and which has in the meantime visited Chicago, where it gained a medal in the British section. To Chicago also went the pathetic picture, “Go, Thou Must Play Alone, my Boy,” which gained for its painter a gold medal in Munich in 1891, and which is now included in an important private collection in America. “Edelweiss” is not well-known in England, for it has only once been exhibited publicly, and then it was purchased by the Prince Regent of Bavaria.

Pont-Avon is full of pleasant recollections to Mrs Stokes, for it was not only here that she painted her first Salon picture, but it was there also that she met Mr Adrian Stokes, the able painter to whom she was married in 1884. Since their marriage, Mr and Mrs Stokes have travelled a great deal, as the various scenes of their pictures have shown; but for the last six years they have lived and painted mainly in St Ives - whence, however, Mrs Stokes flies away occasionally to pay a visit to her beloved Tyrol.

Sources.

• Dictionary of Victorian Painters, and my own research.