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Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall (25 July 1829 – 11 February 1862), better known as Elizabeth Siddal (a spelling she adopted in 1853), was an English artist, art model, and poet. Siddal was perhaps the most significant of the female models who posed for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Their ideas of female beauty were fundamentally influenced and personified by her. Walter Deverell and William Holman Hunt painted Siddal, and she was the model for John Everett Millais's famous painting Ophelia (1852). Early in her relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Siddal became his muse and exclusive model, and he portrayed her in almost all his early artwork depicting women.
Siddal became an artist in her own right and was the only woman to exhibit at an 1857 Pre-Raphaelite exhibition. Significant collections of her artworks can be found at Wightwick Manor and the Ashmolean Museum. Sickly and melancholic during the last decade of her life, Siddal died of a laudanum overdose in 1862 during her second year of marriage to Rossetti.
About 1831, the Siddall family moved to the less affluent borough of Southwark, in south London. The remainder of the Siddall children were born in Southwark: Lydia, to whom she was particularly close; Mary, Clara, James and Henry. Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall "received an ordinary education, conformable to her condition in life" and first "read Tennyson... by finding one or two poems of his on a piece of paper" that had been wrapped around some butter. Literary analysts have noted that her artwork sometimes used subjects from Tennyson's writings and that his writings may have influenced her poetry.
A third account has Deverell accompanying his mother to the millinery where he noticed Siddal in the back of the shop. In any case, Deverell later described Siddal as "magnificently tall, with a lovely figure, and a face of the most delicate and finished modelling... she has grey eyes, and her hair is like dazzling copper, and shimmers with luster." Deverell subsequently employed Siddal as a model and introduced her to the Pre-Raphaelites. The segment featured an interview with an author and a curator about Siddal before the Pre-Raphaelite Sisters exhibition and included an excerpt of Plot 5779 Unearthing Elizabeth Siddal.
As with the other Pre-Raphaelites, Deverell took his inspiration directly from life rather than from an idealized classical figure. In his Twelfth Night painting, he based Orsino on himself, Feste on his friend Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Viola/Cesario on Siddal. This was the first time Siddal sat as a model. According to William Michael Rossetti, Dante Gabriel's brother, "Deverell drew another Viola from her, in an etching for The Germ." Elaine Shefer asserts that Deverell portrayed Siddal in A Pet and The Grey Parrot.
William Holman Hunt painted her in A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids (1849–1850) and Two Gentlemen of Verona, Valentine Rescuing Sylvia From Proteus (1850 or 1851).
For John Everett Millais's Ophelia, Siddal floated in a bathtub full of water to portray the drowning Ophelia. Millais painted daily through the winter, putting oil lamps under the tub to warm the water. On one occasion, the lamps went out and the water became icy cold. Millais, absorbed by his painting, did not notice and Siddal did not complain. After this, she became ill with a severe common cold or pneumonia. Her father held Millais responsible and, under the threat of legal action, Millais paid her doctor's bills.
Siddal came to either embody or influence the Pre-Raphaelite ideals of feminine beauty.
Siddal's 1854 self-portrait (see right) diverged from the Pre-Raphaelites' typical idealised beauty. As Anna Solomon wrote, "she depicts herself looking harsher, angrier and less attractive than the languid Siddal of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings." From 1855 to 1857, art critic John Ruskin subsidised her career and paid £150 per year in exchange for all the drawings and paintings she produced. She produced many sketches, drawings, and watercolours as well as one oil painting. Her sketches are similar to other Pre-Raphaelite compositions illustrating Arthurian legend and other idealized medieval themes, and she was the only woman who exhibited with the Pre-Raphaelites at an 1857 exhibition at No. 4 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square, London. That same year, Siddal studied at the Sheffield School of Art.
During Siddal's career as an artist and poet from 1852 to 1861, she produced more than a hundred works. Unpublished during her lifetime, her poetry often dwelt on dark themes, lost love, or the impossibility of true love. Her small poetic output was nonetheless accomplished. Constance Hassett wrote that "Siddal's poetry ranges from the perfectly realized ballad narrative, to its opposite, the overheard lyric, and to something in between, the made-to-be heard monologue." Critic William Gaunt wrote that "Her verses were as simple and moving as ancient ballads; her drawings were as genuine in their medieval spirit as much more highly finished and competent works of Pre-Raphaelite art."
In 1852, Siddal began to study with Rossetti. She started staying at his Chatham Place residence, sometimes with him and sometimes by herself. They subsequently became anti-social and absorbed in each other's affections. They coined affectionate nicknames for one another, such as "Guggums" or "Gug" and "Dove", the latter one of Rossetti's names for Siddal. He also shortened the spelling of her surname to Siddal, dropping the second l.
During this period, Rossetti's most abundant and personal works were his pencil sketches of Siddal at home, most of which he entitled simply "Elizabeth Siddal". He portrayed Siddal in moments of leisure, such as reading, sitting, or in repose, or when painting or drawing. She also became the subject of much of Rossetti's poetry throughout their relationship and particularly after her death. Rossetti became obsessive in portraying Siddal. It has been estimated that there are thousands of Rossetti's drawings, paintings, and poems in which Siddal was a subject.
Beginning in 1853, Rossetti used Siddal as a model for a series of Dante Alighieri-themed paintings, including The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice (1852), Beatrice Meeting Dante at a Marriage Feast, Denies him her Salutation (1851), Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah (1855), and, perhaps his most famous portrait of her, Beata Beatrix (1864–1870), which he painted as a memorial after her death.
As Siddal came from a working-class family, Rossetti feared introducing her to his family. Siddal was the victim of harsh criticism from his sisters. The knowledge that his family would not approve contributed to Rossetti's delaying the marriage. Siddal appears to have believed, with some justification, that Rossetti was always seeking to replace her with a younger muse, which contributed to her later depressive periods and illness. Although Ruskin urged Rossetti to marry in 1855, their relationship deteriorated: the reasons probably included Siddal's ill-health, her laudanum addiction, Rossetti's philandering, Rossetti's lack of funds, the aforementioned disapproval of the Rossetti family, and Rossetti's probable aversion to marriage in general.
In 1857, Siddal gave up her stipend from Ruskin and went to Sheffield, the birth place of her father, to attend the school of art there. She moved in with her cousin's family. A son of this family, Willie Ibbett, proposed to her, but she indicated that she was already engaged. However, by mid-1858, Siddal and Rossetti appeared to be both done with their engagement and little is known about Siddal from that time until 1860. Spring 1860, Siddal's family contacted Ruskin with the news that Siddal was gravely ill. Ruskin in turn informed Rossetti. Siddal was at the seaside resort of Hastings. In a change of heart, Rossetti hurried to her side that April with a marriage licence. Shortly before their marriage, Rossetti produced a famous portrait of Siddal, Regina Cordium or The Queen of Hearts (1860). This painting is a close-up, vibrantly coloured depiction of Siddal.
Siddal and Rossetti married on Wednesday, 23 May 1860 at St. Clement's Church in Hastings. There were no family or friends present, only a couple of witnesses whom they had asked. When Siddal's health improved, they honeymooned in Paris and Boulogne in the latter half of 1860, then returned to the Chatham Place residence that they expanded into an adjoining house. Siddal became pregnant and appeared to be happier and healthier.
Siddal travelled to Paris and Nice for several years for her health. At the time of her wedding, she was so frail and ill that she had to be carried to the church, despite it being a five-minute walk from where she was staying. She became severely depressed and her long illness gave her access to laudanum to which she became addicted. By 1861, Siddal became pregnant, which ended with the birth of a stillborn daughter. The stillbirth left Siddal with post-partum depression. By early 1862, she had become pregnant for a second time.
Siddal overdosed on laudanum on 10 February 1862. She, Rossetti, and his friend Algernon Charles Swinburne had dined together in a nearby hotel. After having taken Siddal home, Rossetti attended his weekly lecture at the Working Men's College. Upon returning home from teaching, Rossetti found Siddal unconscious in bed and could not revive her. The first doctor Rossetti called claimed that he was unable to save her, upon which Rossetti sent for another three doctors. A stomach pump was used, but to no avail. She died at 7:20am on 11 February 1862 at their home at 14 Chatham Place. Her obituary noted that she "had expressed no wish to die, but quite the reverse. Indeed she contemplated going out of town in a day or two, and had ordered a new mantle which she intended to wear on the occasion." The coroner ruled her death as accidental; however, there are suggestions that Rossetti found a suicide note, with the words "Please look after Harry" (her invalid brother, who may have had a slight intellectual disability), supposedly "pinned... on the breast of her night-shirt." Consumed with grief and guilt Rossetti allegedly went to see Ford Madox Brown who is supposed to have instructed him to burn the note. Since suicide was illegal and considered immoral, it would have brought scandal on the family and barred Siddal from a Christian burial.
In August 1869, Rossetti authorized Charles Howell to disinter her coffin to retrieve a handwritten book of Rossetti's poems, which he had laid beside her head before burial. With the aid of a Dr. Llewelyn Williams and two others, Howell accomplished this in October 1869. Dr. Williams subsequently disinfected the book. Rossetti then published the contents in Poems (1870).
These became part of Rossetti's sonnet sequence entitled The House of Life. This sequence contained the poem "Without Her", a reflection on life once love has departed.
Rosalie Glynn Grylls bought some of Siddal's works at auction in 1961. These works became part of Wightwick Manor, donated by her husband, Geoffrey Mander, and her to the National Trust. A 2018 exhibition, "Beyond Ophelia", curated by National Trust Assistant Curator Hannah Squire, ran for nine months and featured twelve artworks by Siddal and owned by the National Trust. Only the second solo exhibition of her work, the exhibition examined Siddal's career, artistic style, subject matter, and recognition of the challenges she faced as a female artist.
Siddal was among the women featured in the 2019 Pre-Raphaelite Sisters exhibition at London's National Portrait Gallery.
In 2023, the Tate Gallery had an exhibition The Rossettis which included 17 of Siddal's works.
Along with Algernon Charles Swinburne, Siddal and Rossetti are the subjects of "How They Met Themselves", which is part of The Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, drawn by Michael Zulli, and published in Vertigo: Winter's Edge #3 (2000). In it, a dying Lizzie drugged with laudanum has a last dream or vision in which the trio takes a train trip to a forest "where they each would see their true love". This story bears the same title as a drawing and a painting by Rossetti that both depict Siddal.
The Delaware Art Museum hosted a 2022 exhibit of Holly Trostle Brigham's works inspired by and portraying Siddal in conjunction with its Pre-Raphaellite collection that includes works by and a Rossetti portrait of Siddal.
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