Pre-Raphaelite model, painter, and poet.
Elizabeth Siddal began her career as a model for members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, an artistic group that secretly formed in 1848. The fact that she was determined to become an artist herself is testament to her bold spirit and determination.
Death
Lizzie, in frequent ill-health, became dependent on laudanum. She died in 1862 of an overdose. Gabriel buried his only manuscript of his poems with her. Seven years later, he had her coffin exhumed in order to retrieve the poems for publication. Read more.
Through her art, poetry, and the Pre-Raphaelite works she appears in, Elizabeth Siddal still has the power to captivate. The story of her life and struggles beckons to us across time, pulling us into her thrall.
Like many, I first discovered her through the tale of her exhumation and my reaction was a mixture of shock, outrage, and fascination.
Like many others, I first encountered her through the haunting tale of her exhumation. My response was a tangle of shock, indignation, and a strange, lingering fascination.
But everything changed when I read a fragment of her poetry. That initial curiosity deepened into something far more profound.
Dim phantoms of an unknown ill
Float through my tired brain;
The unformed visions of my life
Pass by in ghostly train;
Those lines—so quietly devastating—reached out across more than a century and took hold of me. The imagery, the weariness, the spectral visions of a life only half-lived… they stirred a sense of compassion I had never quite felt for someone long gone. Siddal wasn’t just a muse. In that moment, she became heartbreakingly real.
– Stephanie Chatfield