Elizabeth Siddal

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Standard Name: Siddal, Elizabeth
Birth Name: Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal
Nickname: Guggums
Through her work as model and muse, ES has been firmly ensconced as an icon of Pre-Raphaelitism. However, recent feminist reassessments of her visual art and poetry are reclaiming her as artistic subject rather than object. Jan Marsh writes in the catalogue to a 1991 exhibition of ES 's work at Sheffield's Ruskin Gallery , her artistic oeuvre is small both in size and range. But it was original, serious-minded and modestly successful, and deserves to be accorded a small but significant place in the history of Pre-Raphaelite art.
Marsh, Jan. Elizabeth Siddal, 1829-1862: Pre-Raphaelite Artist. The Ruskin Gallery.
28-9
Black-and-white drawing of Elizabeth Siddal seated with her right elbow placed in the centre of a book and her hand on her chin.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Long after his wife 's death, DGR seemed haunted by her memory. In 1868, the year before exhuming her grave, he expressed the belief that her spirit was in a chaffinch he encountered while staying...
Cultural formation Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
Barbara Leigh Smith , Christina Rossetti , Elizabeth Siddal , Bessie Rayner Parkes , Anna Mary Howitt , and Mary Howitt conducted a series of seances at the Hermitage, the Howitt family home.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
97
Education Elizabeth Taylor
Her first school, where she went at the age of six, was a little private establishment called Leopold House, which gave a grounding in English and maths and team games.
Beauman, Nicola. The Other Elizabeth Taylor. Persephone Books.
12-13
When Betty was eleven...
Family and Intimate relationships Dante Gabriel Rossetti
There is no clear evidence that he and Siddal , who began sitting for him in the early 1850s, were lovers during the course of their early connection and lengthy engagement, but as her health...
Friends, Associates Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In spring 1854 Barbara Leigh Smith took care of Elizabeth Siddal , Dante Gabriel Rossetti 's ailing fiancé and model, at her house near Hastings. Her ties to the Pre-Raphaelite circle later weakened, but...
Friends, Associates Anna Mary Howitt
Family biographer Carl Ray Woodring numbers AMH with a group of Pre-Raphaelite sisters, including Barbara Leigh Smith (later Bodichon) , Bessie Rayner Parkes , and Margaret Gillies , who associated themselves with innovation in...
Friends, Associates Christina Rossetti
Around this time she became aware of her brother Dante Gabriel 's involvement with Elizabeth Siddal , although she and Siddal met only in 1854 and were never intimate friends. Close family friends of Christina...
Friends, Associates William Allingham
He collaborated with artist and poet Elizabeth Siddal , who created illustrations for a volume of his ballads.
Friends, Associates John Ruskin
JR 's social and intellectual network was extensive: amongst his acquaintances were Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning , Elizabeth Gaskell , Violet Hunt , Jean Ingelow , Flora Shaw , Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle
Friends, Associates Algernon Charles Swinburne
After leaving Eton , he met Lady Pauline and Walter Trevelyan , who became longtime friends and supporters. At Oxford he was first introduced to the Pre-Raphaelites , and he forged friendships with Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Intertextuality and Influence Violet Hunt
While the topic of creative women ill-treated and abandoned by their male counterparts runs through VH 's body of work, she had become deeply interested in Siddal 's particular experiences by 1882. She was surrounded...
Occupation Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon
In a review of the exhibition, a critic for the Athenæum praised BLSB 's Algerian landscapes.
Herstein, Sheila R. A Mid-Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon. Yale University Press.
97
Jan Marsh and Pamela Gerrish Nunn's Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists reproduces several of BLSB 's works, including a sketch of Elizabeth Siddal .
Marsh, Jan, and Pamela Gerrish Nunn. Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists. Manchester City Art Galleries.
102-4
Occupation Dante Gabriel Rossetti
DGR 's models as a painter included his sister Christina (whose poem An Artist's Studio offers an interesting perspective on the project of the male artist), his companion painter, poet, and eventual wife Elizabeth Siddal
Occupation John Ruskin
Having begun to publish in the 1830s, when he became a champion of J. W. Turner against established styles of painting, JR made his name and created a sensation with the appearance of the first...
Publishing Gillian Allnutt
GA 's second poetry pamphlet, Lizzie Siddall : Her Journal, was published in a limited edition of 250 copies, by Greville Press .
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
Blackwell’s Online Bookshop. http://Bookshop.Blackwell.co.uk.

Timeline

25 April 1870: Dante Gabriel Rossetti published a collection...

Writing climate item

25 April 1870

Dante Gabriel Rossetti published a collection of Poems, which included Sister Helen, Jenny, and the first part of his sonnet sequence The House of Life.

Texts

Siddal, Elizabeth. Poems and Drawings. Editors Lewis, Roger C. and Mark S. Lasner, Wombat Press, 1978.