Maria Eaton

Maria Eaton was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in 1862, the youngest of six children of Edward Eaton, a drysalter (purveyor of dry chemicals and dyes), and his wife Ellen (née McDonnell). She was baptized on June 4, 1862, and grew up at Upton Cottage, Upton, near Macclesfield. By 1881, the family had moved to Lower Beech House, Tytherington. She received some artistic training at the South Kensington Schools, where she was awarded a medal of excellence, though details of her education are limited.

Eaton immigrated to Canada in the early 1880s and became established as an artist while living in Montreal. She began exhibiting at the Art Association of Montreal in 1889. She returned to England by early 1891 and set up a practice at Mr. Head's bookshop in Congleton, Cheshire, where she held exhibitions and gave classes in painting and drawing. By 1901, she was based at Burlington House, Manchester, describing herself in the census as an "artist photographer." She painted portrait miniatures, including works of Sir Alfred Hopkinson and Edwin Waugh, showing the latter at the Royal Academy in 1904 as her first exhibit there.

In 1906, Eaton moved to London, living at various addresses including College Road, Haverstock Hill, Adelaide Road, South Hampstead, and High Holborn. In 1912, she held a solo exhibition of watercolors of Badminton House at Frost & Reed in Bristol. In 1913, at age 51, she married architect and artist Ernest Llewellyn Hampshire, who was twenty years her junior. After her marriage, she began signing her work "Maria Hampshire Eaton" rather than "Maria Eaton." The couple lived at various London addresses and spent summers on the Isle of Man to paint.

Following her marriage, Eaton shifted her focus from portrait miniatures to floral studies, landscapes, and scenic rural townscapes. She became known for watercolor and gouache miniatures painted on celluloid, depicting rural cottage settings, village scenes, and cityscapes. She painted multiple works at once on larger sheets of celluloid before cutting them into individual pieces for framing. She became a member of the Society of Miniaturists in 1927 and exhibited at venues including the Society of Women Artists, the Salon des Artistes Françaises in Paris, and the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, where Queen Mary purchased her work "Spring Flowers" in 1922. According to labels on her paintings, she sold works to Queen Mary, Queen Alexandra, Queen Maud of Norway, and the Princess Royal. Maria Hampshire Eaton died in 1944 at age 82.