The third of twelve children of artist Thomas HART, and one of seven children to also become artists, although she did not take it up professionally as did five of her brothers. Marie Louise was born in 1866 at the Hart family home at Polbrean on the Lizard. She is recorded there as a scholar in 1881 but by 1891 she had moved to London.

She and George Kingston Hall Brutton, an attorney (1866-1947) were married at St Pancras in that year, and moved to Shanghai, where their daughter, Marguerite, was born. Marie Louise is recorded in the 1911 census as living with Marguerite, then 15 years old, in Eastbourne. She died in Plymouth in 1942.