Rossetti letter to Madox Brown 23 January 1869: Poor Ned's affairs have come to a smash altogether, and he and Topsy, after the most dreadful to-do, started for Rome suddenly, leaving the Greek damsel beating up the quarters of all his friends for him and howling like Cassandra. Georgie stayed behind. I hear to-day however that Top and Ned got no further than Dover, Ned being so dreadfully ill that they will probably have to return to London.
From an ex-patriate Greek family, Maria Zambaco was model, pupil and lover to Burne-Jones for about four years up to about 1870. Hers 'was a wonderful head', he wrote in a letter to Helen Gaskell in 1895; 'neither profile was like the other quite, and full face was different again'.
In January 1869 his wife Georgina found a letter from Maria in his clothing and Burne-Jones reluctantly ended the affair.