Maria Giberne


Maria Rosina Giberne was a French-English artist and convert to Roman Catholicism.

Early life

One of seven children, Giberne was born in Clapton, London in 1802, the daughter of wine merchant Mark Giberne and Rebecca Sharp.

Work

Giberne spent the late 1840s and 1850s in Rome working as an artist, living first with the Colonna and then the Borghese families. She produced portraits in chalk and then in oils, of members of those families and of subjects including Newman, Henry Wilberforce, and Pope Pius IX. When Newman was raised to the cardinalate, she produced a portrait of Saint Francis de Sales for his private chapel. Giberne professed vows as a sister of the Visitation at the convent in Autun, France, in 1863, taking the name Maria Pia in honour of Pius IX. She died at the convent in 1885.