John Elliott was an artist, illustrator, and muralist. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian under Carolus-Duran. In 1878, he went to Rome to study with José Villegas Cordero and there met his future wife, Maud Howe, Pulitzer-prize-winning American writer and the daughter of Julia Ward Howe, the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Elliott is known for his epic Symbolist murals including working alongside his friend and colleague John Singer Sargent to provide murals for the Boston Public library, as well as creating a mural in the National Museum

Maud Howe Elliott was an American novelist, most notable for her Pulitzer prize-winning collaboration with her sisters, Laura E. Richards and Florence Hall, on their mother's biography The Life of Julia Ward Howe (1916). Her other works included A Newport Aquarelle (1883); Phillida (1891); Mammon, later published as Honor: A Novel (1893); Roma Beata, Letters from the Eternal City (1903); Sun and Shadow in Spain (1908) ;The Eleventh Hour in the Life of Julia Ward Howe (1911); Three Generations (1923); Lord Byron's Helmet (1927); John Elliott, The Story of an Artist (1930); My Cousin, F. Marion Crawford (1934); and This Was My Newport (1944).