Maud Cruttwell and the Berensons: ‘A preliminary canter to an independent career’

Although his long-time companion and wife, Mary Costelloe Berenson, was Bernard Berenson’s most conspicuous female protegee, she was obligated to write under a pseudonym. She therefore focused a large share of her energies in assisting Bernard in his research and writing, as well as in shaping the reception of his school of connoisseurship through articles and reviews. Among the several sapphic women in their circle studying art — a group Mary dubbed the ‘Virgins of the Hill’ — Maud Cruttwell was perhaps the most outwardly successful. Having studied under the tutelage of both Mary and Bernard Berenson, she established an independent reputation by publishing a series of popular artist monographs in rapid succession. Though she eventually became disillusioned with the field of art history, her contributions, important for their popularization of Berensonian connoisseurship, long remained benchmark resources in, as well as models for, the study of Italian Renaissance art.