Rachel Wade
Victorian society had little to offer for women - we all know that. Yet it seems Lizzie Siddal (née Elizabeth Elanor Siddall) found her way in the world with her looks. Despite being a simple employee at a milliner's shop in London, and her lithe frame and red hair being ‘plain’ compared to the beauty standard of the mid nineteenth century, it was artist Rossetti who was enthralled by her. Albeit, by the nineteenth century, the archaic superstitions of red hair being sinister and damned had survived for hundreds of years. Yet the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (“PRB”) celebrated red hair, idolising all things unique.
The PRB were a group of artists who were nostalgic of Raphael and Michaelangelo’s religious and prophetic symbolism in art, influenced by romanticism and the fantastical medieval era in their artform, rejecting all other celebrated artists who succeeded them. In 1848, Dante Rossetti had become an integrated part of this society. His work was renowned, as upon introduction to Lizzie by fellow Pre-Raphaelite Walter Deverell. Lizzie had modelled as Viola in Deverell’s Twelfth Night painting, pronouncing the copper glow of her hair and her 'porcelain skin’, after being noticed by him through word of mouth whilst walking home with a colleague. She began working part-time as a model for Deverell, alongside other Brotherhood members, notably Holman Hunt. Rossetti did not begin painting her until 1850.
Upon his discovery of her, she transformed the beauty standards. Her visage in and out of paintings was praised by many - Rossetti himself seemingly becoming addicted to her. Their love story is certainly a tragedy: upon reading the book ‘Lizzie Siddal: The Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel’ by Lucinda Hawksley, ending each chapter felt like an added weight of remorse. Lizzie can be interpreted as both attention-seeking and jealous, yet also innocent and humble. She did pauperise her background to Rossetti, but it does not hide the fact that her upbringing was worlds away to her aristocratic peers. Her drawled-out illnesses heightened Rossetti’s need to protect her - but not enough to stop him being unfaithful or to marry her. It was not until Lizzie was on her deathbed in which they wed, ‘it had taken nine long years, but she was finally going to be E.E.R. instead of E.E.S.’.
There are a multitude of elements to Lizzie’s life which can be intently analysed: her relationships, her own health, her upbringing, her own art, even her death. Nothing hurts more than knowing she could not even rest peacefully, as Rossetti had regretted burying the only copy of his in-progress poems with her. Rossetti complained to his doctor that her ghost visited him each night, and he was haunted by the image of her - ‘wherever he slept, Lizzie’s ghost apparently found him’. Once finishing Hawklsey's book, Lizzie's story certainly lingered. The darkness of her experiences leave you in awe. For decades, Rossetti's study became more and more filled with his sketches of her throughout their tumultuous relationship. Now that she was gone, the hole she left behind was a painful void. In life, his affairs ruined her despite his extreme attentiveness towards her; her mysterious illnesses spiralled. Lizzie’s relationship with Rossetti resulted in self-destruction, for it was not her physical health which sealed ultimately her fate, but her ruinous addiction to laudanum (as was the case with the majority of Victorians). In 1870, Rossetti completed one of his most famous pieces of Lizzie: ‘Beata Beatrix’, after spending six years working on it. Lizzie was portrayed as Beatrice, who was the great love of his favourite poet Dante Allighieri (1265-1321). Beatrice and Dante’s relationship was also one of woe, in which they had loved one another “at first sight” despite being married to another and never truly knowing one another. Rossetti fawned over this story, resembling Lizzie as his Beatrice.
In her lifetime, Lizzie endured disparagement: notably by Rossetti’s own family. Her appearance was seen as nothing extraordinary in her early years, yet over time - certainly after her death - she was remarkable. It is hard not to stare at Ophelia, taking in each inch of the features from the delicacy of the flowers, the ominous stillness of Lizzie’s frame, the flowing of the dress. We may praise her contribution to art and poetry all we like, but her escalation of the social ranks with Rossetti quite frankly doomed her fate.
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