givemearmstopraywith: detail: regina cordium (1860) by dante gabriel rossettiwho is the real elizabe

givemearmstopraywith: detail: regina cordium (1860) by dante gabriel rossettiwho is the real elizabeth siddal? is she the shakespearean-style heroine who developed pneumonia while modelling for john everett millais’ iconic ophelia? the controlling wife who took her future husband, dante gabriel rossetti, from his true love jane burden? or is she the tragic figure who committed suicide when she was only thirty, ending her own life and that of her unborn child with laudanum?who is the real elizabeth siddal? what we know of elizabeth siddal we learn from the hundreds of sketches of her made by her husband, by his letters and the accounts of her contemporaries, and by the astonishing poetry and art from her short-lived career which she left behind. she was discovered in a hat shop, her beauty and her red hair astonishing. art critics decried her as ugly: the artists who adopted her as their muse worshiped her as their paragon of beauty. but who is the real elizabeth siddal? we know that in modelling for ophelia, she was made to rest in a bathtub, in winter weather, in millais’ family basement. the tub was warmed by oil lamps and, when the oil ran out, she merely floated in frigid water instead of informing millais. her subsequent illness rendered her unable to model- a good living if you could handle the reputation that came with it- and instead of returning to working life, she began to paint and write on her own. her skill attracted the talent of preeminent critic and patron john ruskin, who considered her talent above that of her lover, rossetti, and funded her work accordingly. while she worked, rossetti was shuffled off to oxford for menial fresco work, where he met his future business partners william morris and edward burne-jones, and began an affair with jane burden, another working class girl who became his model.but who is the real elizabeth siddal? elizabeth attempted to extricate herself from her relationship with rossetti multiple times, including attempting to leave their shared accommodations in london to take up residence in bath, only to be followed there by her former lover. rossetti had numerous relationships with other women. although siddal was only diagnosed with scoliosis in her lifetime, contemporary scholars speculate she may have suffered from depression and anorexia. and we know she certainly became dependent on laudanum, though how much of this was due to her mental health issues and how much from physical illness remains unclear. on her wedding day, she was so weak she had to be carried to the church even though it was only five minutes from her lodgings. some scholars speculate that she used her ill health to blackmail rossetti into marrying her. but who is the real elizabeth siddal? womanhood is a tricky thing, particularly that of a woman attempting to circumvent the traditional avenues available to her, and break with the stereotypes attached to careers like modelling and to women in art. even more tricky is when that legacy becomes entirely overtaken by men- her husband, her brother-in-law, algernon swinburne, even oscar wilde attributed their own versions of her life to her legacy. the real elizabeth siddal died in 11 february, 1962. when she was buried, her husband was so overwrought he buried with her his complete collection of poetry. seven years later, short on money, he had her body exhumed to retrieve the tome. thought too distraught to witness it himself, his friends who oversaw the affair told him her body in the coffin was perfectly preserved, and her red hair- that defining pre-raphaelite feature- had continued to grow after death, filling the coffin. we do not know if it is true or not- now her grave is closed to the public, part of the rossetti family plot. it served only to add to her mythos.who is the real elizabeth siddal? that, then, is the eternal question. where is the real woman behind a legacy which is written by men? (x)She sounds fascinating, and that’s putting it mildly. It’s these kinds of stories I’m really interested in because I feel like there is so much about womens’ lives throughout history that we don’t know or that has been ignored, overlooked, distorted, or lied about throughout the ages. I want to learn everything I can, especially womens’ lives. (Btw, I assume it was a typo, she died in 1862) -- source link

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