Estella Louisa Canziani (1887-1964) was the daughter of the portraitist Louisa Starr and studied at the Royal Academy surrounded by the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite circle and Arts & Crafts movement. During her travels through Italy and Africa, she painted the clothing, ornaments, daily activities, house interiors and festivals of the regions she visited, celebrating the traditional ways of life that were in danger of being lost through modern industry and mass communication. This beautiful, jewel-like tempera painting showing the intimate bond between two sisters is a an fine example of Estella Canziani’s work.

Songs, proverbs and folktales became a main inspiration, and even her lifestyle and dress also reflected the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement with its emphasis on natural fabrics, ethnic ornamentation and attention to detail. The London Museum now hold examples some of her personal clothing. Canziani joined the Folklore Society in 1910 and became a member of its Council in 1911 after the publication of Costumes, Traditions and Songs of Savoy (London, 1911). She became major collector and donor of European objects gifting over seven hundred English objects to the Pitt Rivers Museum alone with many other contributions to the museum's worldwide collections. In 1963 she appointed Beatrice Blackwood as an executor and trustee, noting that 'apart from any of the desirable qualities, & including these qualities - that it would be best, also to have a woman.'

Estella Canziani was perhaps most famous for her celebrated fairy picture The Piper of Dreams which was shown in the Royal Academy in 1915. The picture rivalled Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World in popularity with over a quarter of a million prints sold in the first year. Mary Clive reminisced in her biography how Canziani’s prints hung over many a child’s bed as a sort of honorary guardian angel. (1) In the spirit of Burne-Jones, who famously stated: For every locomotive they build I shall paint another angel, it offered escapism from the drudgery of everyday life. It is no coincidence that a large number of her prints were sold to soldiers in the trenches.

The most extensive collection of her paintings is now in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, but the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, and the Museum of London hold significant assemblages of artefacts and costumes collected by her in Italy and Morocco.

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