KANSAS CITY, MO. .- A major painting by an esteemed 18th-century female artist was gifted to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Realized in 1801-1802, A Religious Allegory on the Death of a Young Woman is the last known work by celebrated painter Maria Cosway (English, born Italy, 1759-1838), and the second known work by the artist in a North American public collection. It is the gift of longtime museum supporters Virginia and James Moffett.

“This singularly important work is the last painting ever completed by Maria Cosway,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Director & CEO of the Nelson-Atkins. “This, along with the Rachel Ruysch painting given by the Moffetts several years ago, has significantly enriched the diversity of our European collection, and we are most grateful to them. Thanks to their extraordinary generosity, we can provide visitors and scholars with a much deeper insight into the lives of two immensely significant women artists. Their inclusion in the collection enables us to explore their history more extensively and present a more comprehensive picture of European Art.”

The nocturnal scene portrays a young woman in white on her deathbed surrounded by three mourners and one angel at her head, who leans forward with her arms extended toward the light. Three additional figures appear at her feet representing Charity, Faith, and Hope. Influenced by neoclassicism, Cosway's composition resonates with the works of her contemporaries Jacques-Louis David, John Flaxman, William Blake and Antonio Canova.

“This final painting illustrates the summation of Cosway’s artistic journey, religious fervor, and the profound loss of her only child,” said Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Louis L. and Adelaide C. Ward Senior Curator, European Arts.

“It is a major statement in Cosway’s career, embodying her intense Catholicism and personal grief,” added Stephen Lloyd, curator of the Derby Collection at Knowsley Hall, England, a specialist in Cosway’s work.

It is also the only known composition to have survived that Cosway realized in multiple media: painting, drawing, and etching.

Born in Italy in 1759, Maria Cosway exhibited artistic talents from an early age. Her multifaceted career included exhibiting at the Royal Academy in London- a feat at the time for a female artist- and opening an art academy for women. This composition stands as her sole known painting executed in Paris.

This is the second major European gift to the Nelson-Atkins from the Moffett collection. Their painting Still Life of Exotic Flowers on a Marble Ledge by late seventeenth/early eighteenth-century Dutch artist Rachel Ruysch (Dutch, 1664-1750) hung in the museum’s European galleries, on loan, for 20 years. Virginia and her husband James Moffett came to the museum every Sunday afternoon during those two decades to visit the painting and they were struck by the affection with which museum visitors admired the delicate work. They decided to make the loan a gift in 2017, and it became the first example by Ruysch to enter the collection. A mature work featuring many exotic flowers from India, Peru, South Africa, and North America, it remained in the artist’s immediate family for at least 10 years, leading scholars to speculate that the painting held special meaning for her.

The Cosway and Ruysch paintings greatly enrich the European collection and join significant works by fellow 18th-century women artists Elisabeth Louise-Vigée LeBrun, Maria Luigia Raggi, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. The Moffetts have been similarly generous with gifts to the museum’s American collection.