Home to the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite art outside the United Kingdom, the Delaware Art Museum  is a magnet for aficionados of the movement, celebrated for its luminous palette, saturated colors and romantic depictions of nobility, nature and religion.

Fair maidens are a recurring theme, yet only a handful of women artists painted their way into the inner circle of the movement.

Visitors to the museum can get a rare, in-depth look at the work of Marie Spartali Stillman, eldest daughter of the Greek consul-general to London and an insider in the Victorian art world. She gained entrance to the Pre-Raphaelite circle as a model for Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the artist and poet, and then as a painter in her own right.

Poetry in Beauty, the first retrospective of Spartali Stillman’s art,  showcases  approximately 50 works by the artist, roughly half the paintings she created in a career that spanned 60 years.

Her style reflects her British Pre-Raphaelite training as well as the influence of Renaissance art, derived from years living and working in Italy with her husband, a prominent journalist, and their three children.

Her paintings also are inspired by Shakespeare, gardens and country life, and many focus on women. The museum borrowed the paintings from public and private collections in the United States, Britain, and Canada, many shown publicly for the first time since Spartali Stillman died in 1927 at age 83. The exhibit runs through Jan. 31.