"Reflections" drabbles by Lisa Williams

Marietta Robusti

Reflections

The Little Dyer girl was one of seven. She dressed as a boy for a decade and a half, the only way to learn her father’s art even though he was Tintoretto.

Experts still struggle to tell her work from his. Philip II wanted her as court painter but papà couldn’t bear to see her go. Emperor Maximillian was told no too.

An agreement that she’d not leave his household while he lived held Marietta back; he found her a husband, a Venetian Jeweller. And she kept her promise until at 30 she died, four years before him, in childbirth.