When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like a while they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element. But long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
In Act 4 Scene 7 of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Queen Gertrude announces that the play’s tragic heroine Ophelia has drowned in a river. Occurring off stage, the scene is left to the minds of the audience, but it’s also one which has sparked the imagination of many artists – most notably, Sir John Everett Millais. In his exquisite painting Ophelia (1851–52), Millais portrays the young woman in an embroidered gown, framed by flowers and her long red hair, lying pale and lifeless in her watery grave.
Millais was one of the founding members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. During the nineteenth century this group of young artists, which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and Frederic George Stephens, were disenchanted with the academic approach to painting currently being taught at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Wanting to revive British art, they advocated a return to the vividly painted, symbolic narrative scenes of medieval art.
Turning to myths and legends, the plays of Shakespeare and Romantic poetry for inspiration, the Pre-Raphaelites often portrayed doomed damsels: Proserpina, Medea, Dante’s Beatrice and the Lady of Shalott. Art history has also told us, time and time again, how these male artists relied on their beautiful flame-haired female muses; and among them, none is more famous than Elizabeth ‘Lizzie’ Siddall, immortalised by Millais in his painting of Ophelia.
Modelling for Millais’s painting almost killed Siddall: over a period of several months, and for hours at a time, she lay in a bath full of water which was heated by oil lamps placed beneath it. However, on one occasion, these lamps went out; and the muse, who did not complain at the icy conditions, subsequently became very ill with pneumonia. Although she eventually recovered, the painting foreshadows Siddall’s own unhappy life: she died aged just thirty-two from a laudanum overdose.
The archetype of the tragic muse has been cemented by the Pre-Raphaelite movement’s paintings of haunted heroines; and the image of Siddall as the drowned Ophelia has been held up as the paradigm of a misused female model falling victim to an egotistical male artist. But was Siddall exploited, or did she embrace the role of muse for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood? Was she a sacrificial lamb or is this version of events as fictional as the tale of Ophelia?
First, we need to understand how Siddall came to pose for the Pre-Raphaelite painters. Many narratives tell us that she was working in a London hat shop in 1849, when she was discovered by Millais’s friend and fellow painter, Walter Deverell. Struck by the distinctive beauty of this twenty-something working woman, the artist plucked her from obscurity to take her as his muse.
However, it’s likely that this version of events, which frames Siddall as a Cinderella-style figure in need of rescuing, is nothing more than a fairy tale. Instead, Siddall, who was herself an aspiring artist at this time, decided to show some of her drawings and watercolours to the director of London’s Government School of Design. He was the father of Deverell, and it was through this encounter that Siddall was introduced to the painter, subsequently agreeing to pose for his canvas, Twelfth Night (1850).
Deverell’s painting illustrates the scene in which Duke Orsino, who is hopelessly in love with Countess Olivia, orders his clown, Feste, to sing the song ‘Come away, come away, death’. Sitting beside the Duke is his handsome page, Cesario, who is actually a woman – Viola. Completing the comic love triangle, she has secretly fallen for him too. Siddall, who sat for Viola, appears disguised in a medieval pageboy’s dress and tights, leaning intently towards her master.
After modelling for this painting, Siddall soon met the wider circle of Pre-Raphaelite painters, including Holman Hunt and Millais, and posed for them too. These men were attracted to her striking looks: not beautiful by Victorian standards, Siddall was tall and boyishly thin, with pale eyelashes, protruding teeth and unusual auburn locks. While masquerading as various characters from Viola to Ophelia, one constant in these pictures is Siddall’s long red hair, which the painters kept in a tribute to her individuality. Not only was she these artists’ ideal muse, but her unique look also came to define the movement.
However, it wasn’t just her appearance that attracted artists to paint pictures of Siddall. The model inflected the multiple partnerships she entered into with her deep knowledge of and interest in art and literature – writing her own poetry as well as painting. She would, therefore, have been well versed in the stories which were brought to life by the Pre-Raphaelites, and was willing to impersonate characters with understanding and dedication; in the case of Ophelia, to the point that she made herself seriously ill.
The artists also valued Siddall’s demeanour; she demanded respect from them. As Holman Hunt once wrote, ‘She’s like a queen… she behaves like a real lady, by clear commonsense, and without any affectation, knowing perfectly, too, how to keep people respectful at a distance.’ This veneration of Siddall courses through canvases in which she appears idolised as a heroine and divinity, even featuring as Jesus in Hunt’s majestic painting The Light of the World (1851–53), once again with her red hair prominent.
One common misconception is that muses, such as Siddall, provided artists with inspiration for free. In her feminist essay ‘The role of the artist’s muse’, Germaine Greer writes that ‘A muse is anything but a paid model’, using the term as an unflattering euphemism for unpaid female labour. In the case of Siddall, this is far from the truth; for her commitment to the Pre-Raphaelites, she was paid well. Initially, she modelled part-time alongside her job in the hat shop, but over time, she turned musedom into a profitable career on its own.
We can therefore see that becoming a muse offered Siddall real opportunity. In Victorian society, a woman of her standing – she came from a lower-middle-class family – could work but only in a limited number of sectors that were deemed ‘feminine’, including seamstressing or retail, and they were paid far less than their male counterparts. Professions, including the law and medicine, were closed off to women.
Furthermore, once married, a woman was expected to focus upon her role as a wife, mother and ‘Angel of the House’. Although there was progress in women’s rights, with debates around education, employment and voting rights – it wasn’t until 1918 that the House of Lords gave approval for women over the age of thirty to have the right to vote – women were considered subordinate to men.
This power structure was also felt within the patriarchal art world: although women were encouraged to be creative in the domestic setting, they weren’t expected to pursue a serious artistic career. If you were an aspiring female artist, you could attend some art classes, although no life drawing, and were prohibited from enrolling at the Royal Academy Schools. Women, therefore, struggled to gain formal qualifications with which they could pursue a professional career in the arts.
Taking up the position of muse allowed Siddall a significant role at the heart of an artistic community, which she longed to join, and from which she would otherwise have been excluded. Aspiring to be a professional artist, modelling was perhaps the clearest pathway through which Siddall could collaborate with, learn from and make art with her male counterparts. Given the societal restrictions placed upon her, she used her position as muse to bypass them as best she could.
At the same time, the choice to model for artists was not without risk. Firstly, to pose unchaperoned was regarded as far removed from appropriate female behaviour during the nineteenth century. Typically, it was either prostitutes and servants who sat for artists, or else close family members, such as wives and sisters. It would have been extremely risqué for a young, unmarried, lower-middle-class woman like Siddall to pose alone in a painter’s studio. As Dr Serena Trowbridge explains, ‘Her father was certainly anxious about propriety when she began modelling, perhaps fearing it would make her unmarriageable.’
Furthermore, the Pre-Raphaelites’ daring narrative paintings, in which women appear outside traditional beauty standards and expected behaviour, were considered scandalous. For example, when Millais exhibited Ophelia in 1852 a critic from The Times of London condemned the artist’s ‘perverse’ placement of her in a ‘weedy ditch’. Likewise, the Athenaeum’s critic judged Ophelia’s face as entirely inappropriate: ‘The open mouth is somewhat gaping and gabyish’.
Similarly, Deverell’s Twelfth Night was met with contempt when first shown. The critic William Michael Rossetti – younger brother of a founding member of the Pre-Raphaelite Movement, Dante Gabriel Rossetti – complained that the head of Viola was ‘not physically beautiful enough’ and her ‘short dress’ was ‘immodest’. Siddall was complicit in the creation of this shocking new modern art, which railed against Victorian standards and upset contemporary audiences.
Although initially Siddall modelled for multiple Pre-Raphaelite artists, this soon changed. In 1849, she met Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who invited her to pose for him too. Siddall did, willingly; but this wasn’t enough for Rossetti who, wanting her all to himself, insisted his new muse work for him alone.
While Siddall’s involvement with Deverell, Holman Hunt and Millais was defined by mutual respect and professionalism, the dynamic with Rossetti was altogether different: the pair had fallen in love. From the very start, they entered into an unstable, on-off relationship, and Siddall – once the muse of many – agreed to model just for Rossetti. In turn, the artist drew and painted her thousands of times, both as fictional characters and, pointing to his infatuation, as herself.
On many occasions, Rossetti created intimate portraits which show his muse caught deep in thought, reading or painting. In a particularly striking drawing, Elizabeth Siddal Seated at an Easel (1850–60), her long hair has been tied back, a full-length gown hides her feet and, as she leans forwards, the focus of the composition is on her hand, which stretches out to make the first mark on a blank canvas.
This artwork reflects a hugely important aspect of Siddall’s relationship with Rossetti; he encouraged his muse in her own painting. Treating her as his pupil, he shared his paints and studio with her, took her to art galleries, and taught her privately. Rossetti also invited her to collaborate with him on paintings, including murals on the walls of William Morris’s Red House in southeast London.
Rossetti championed Siddall’s work, wanting to ensure that she was taken seriously by the art world. Most importantly, he introduced his partner’s portfolio of paintings and drawings to the leading art critic of the time, John Ruskin, in 1855. Ruskin was so impressed by her ‘genius’ that he bought the lot and took on the role of patron, giving Siddall a generous annual allowance. As the art historian Lucinda Hawksley points out, ‘If she had not been Rossetti’s lover, it is unlikely Lizzie would have had any chance of being noticed by the established art world. As a female artist, even one of brilliance, it was a Herculean task to infiltrate that patriarchal sphere – but the backing of a man such as John Ruskin was the stepping stone she needed to help bring her to the forefront and to be taken seriously as an artist.’
With Ruskin and Rossetti as her advocates, Siddall began to show her work – a remarkable feat given that in 1850s Britain women were rarely allowed to exhibit publicly. She exhibited paintings and drawings alongside the male Pre-Raphaelites, including at a salon at Russell Place in London in 1857. She also had work sent in a group show to America and, with the help of Ruskin and Rossetti, secured an exhibition for her paintings at a gallery in London’s Charlotte Street.
Her paintings and sketches are typically Pre-Raphaelite in subject matter and style. Like her male counterparts, she featured heroines from literature within enchanted medieval worlds. In her drawing The Lady of Shalott she takes her inspiration from Tennyson’s poem: the Lady, forbidden to leave her tower, is only allowed to see the outside world through a mirror or else suffer a curse. Siddall shows the protagonist weaving tapestries, under the yoke of fate.
This drawing is typical of Siddall’s art, in which we find active heroines who embody her own creative force. In another picture, she has drawn the witch Sister Helen burning a wax figure of her unfaithful lover. Turning inwards for inspiration, Siddall used herself as her own muse, as well as Rossetti; he appears alongside her in works in which they play couples from literature, including Macbeth and Lady Macbeth – with him prising the knife from her hand.
With Ruskin’s support, Siddall achieved financial independence from Rossetti – she could now buy her own art materials. As well as giving her an allowance, Ruskin paid for Siddall to travel to Europe, although joined by a suitable chaperone; at this time, an unmarried young woman was expected to be accompanied, for propriety’s sake, by an older married woman in public.
Siddall’s trip to Europe was intended to improve her ill-health, and Ruskin specifically advised her to stay away from Paris. But Siddall refused his advice and, joined by Rossetti, spent six weeks in the city, where she saw Millais’s painting of herself as Ophelia hanging pride of place in the Exposition Universelle.
Returning from Paris, Siddall also attended classes at Sheffield School of Art from 1857 to 1858. At this point, she gave up her allowance from Ruskin, and used her savings to pay for lodgings nearby the school. This move illustrates her ambition and desire to become an artist in her own right, beyond the control of any men. However, her burgeoning career was short-lived.
Throughout her life Siddall suffered from poor physical and mental health, including severe depression. A doctor’s letter says she had curvature of the spine, and that she was potentially hysterical. Over time, she increasingly self-medicated with laudanum, an opium concoction widely used in the nineteenth century as a painkiller. In 1861, she became pregnant, but it sadly ended with the birth of a stillborn daughter, possibly due to her drug addiction. Left with post-partum depression, Siddall never quite recovered from this tragedy.
Rossetti, too, added to her anxiety. While he supported her professionally, he often failed to treat her fairly. He demanded exclusivity from her as his muse, but he continued to take other models, including Fanny Cornforth, Jane Morris and Fanny Eaton. He also repaid Siddall’s loyalty with serial infidelity: taking several of his muses as mistresses, he invoked great jealousy in his partner.
In addition to this, for ten years Rossetti remained ‘engaged’ to Siddall without setting a wedding date – a hugely unfair position to put her in given Victorian attitudes towards unmarried models. Finally, in 1860, the couple married in a simple ceremony in Hastings. But, by this time, Siddall’s health was deteriorating – some researchers have proposed that the wedding only happened after Siddall’s family called Rossetti to her sickbed and, understanding the urgency, he agreed to marry her. Just two years later, while pregnant with their child, Siddall died from an overdose.
What Siddall’s story makes clear is that when a romantic element is added to the relationship between artist and muse, it complicates matters – particularly when the muse is also an artist. This is a pattern seen throughout history, in which artist-muses, especially women, have poured creativity into their romantic partners’ work; and male artists have leveraged their status to control their female muse – just think of Picasso.
In the case of Rossetti and Siddall, their relationship was, without doubt, emotionally turbulent. For many critics, this volatility is reflected in Siddall’s melancholic poetry, in which she often evokes unattainable love and frames herself as a doomed romantic heroine. In her poem ‘Worn Out’ the narrator, lying on her lover’s chest, experiences tension between finding comfort and distress in their union:
Thy strong arms are around me, love
My head is on thy breast
Low words of comfort come from thee
Yet my soul has no rest.
However, to read such poems in a purely biographical light does Siddall a disservice as a poet: suggesting that she projects her own emotions, rather than create characters, lessens her credibility as a writer.
Just as we must separate Siddall’s poetic persona from her as a poet, so too must we detach Rossetti’s frequent representation of her, as a tragic romantic muse, from reality. After her death, he took inspiration from Dante’s semi-autobiographical La Vita Nuova – in which the Italian poet mourns his late muse, Beatrice – to paint his notable canvas Beata Beatrix (c.1864–70). Seated with her eyes closed, enveloped by a hazy mist and surrounded by symbolic images from Dante’s narrative, Siddall has been conflated with the idealised image of Beatrice, portrayed through Rossetti’s lens of longing. As Dr Trowbridge points out, ‘In Beata Beatrix, Rossetti memorialises his dead wife, so that Siddall becomes a vehicle for masculine yearning, which obscures her as a creative figure in her own right.’ An allegorical figure of Love, portrayed as an angel, holds in her palm the flickering flame of the muse’s life; it’s as if Rossetti is extinguishing Siddall’s image as an artist, too.
We must remember, however, that Siddall was far more than a tragic character to be looked upon with pity. Her story is not as straightforward as the legend of a passive fairy-tale princess plucked from obscurity to be framed as art history’s heroine, used for her looks alone. Before meeting Rossetti, she had collaborated successfully with many of the movement’s artists on a professional basis, playing a whole cast of characters from Ophelia to Viola. Acting as a co-conspirator within the Brotherhood, not only did Siddall become the face of this radical new movement, but she also went on to exhibit alongside her male counterparts as a key member of the group.
Moreover, exalted as a muse by Millais, Rossetti and others, Siddall remains in the spotlight. Of course, it’s essential that we distinguish the real woman – artist, poet and performing model – from fictional depictions on canvas. But, Deverell’s early image of her as Shakespeare’s protagonist Viola, deliberately masquerading as her brother, does reflect Siddall’s strategic place within the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: she donned such disguises with real purpose, manipulating her position as muse to overcome the constraints of her time and infiltrate the patriarchal art world.