Fanny Geefs

Fanny Geefs (1807–1883) was a Belgian painter of Irish descent who worked mainly in Brussels during much of the nineteenth century. Born Isabelle Marie Françoise Corr, she was said to have been born in either Dublin or Brussels, a detail the record leaves uncertain. As a child she showed an early interest in art, and in the 1830s she studied with the painter François-Joseph Navez.

Although known for her portraits, she also painted religious and historical scenes, among them Our Lady Appearing to the Oppressed, which hangs in the Church of the Holy Family in Schaerbeek. In 1836 she married the sculptor Guillaume Geefs, who had considerable professional success, and she took commissions from the Belgian royal family, including several portraits of Queen Louise-Marie.

Her triptych La Vie d'Une Femme: La Piété, l'Amour et la Douleur, known in English as The Life of a Woman: Pity, Love, Sorrow, influenced Charlotte Brontë when she wrote Villette, an autobiographical novel set in Brussels. After Geefs died in 1883, the Royal Library of Belgium bought a large collection of her works. She was the sister of the Irish engraver Erin Corr.