Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall was an English artist, poet, and artists' model. Siddall was an important and influential artist and poet. Significant collections of her artworks can be found at Wightwick Manor and the Ashmolean. Siddall was painted and drawn extensively by artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Walter Deverell, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais (including his notable 1852 painting Ophelia) and her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, named after her mother, was born on 25 July 1829, at the family's home at 7 Charles Street, Hatton Garden. Her parents were Charles Crooke Siddall, and Eleanor Evans, from a family of English and Welsh descent. At the time of her birth, her father had a cutlery-making business but around 1831, her family moved to the borough of Southwark, in south London, a less salubrious area than Hatton Garden. The rest of Siddall's siblings were born in Southwark; Lydia, to whom she was particularly close; Mary, Clara, James and Henry. Although there is no record of Elizabeth Siddall having attended school, she could read and write, presumably having been taught by her parents. She developed a love of poetry at a young age, after discovering a poem by Tennyson, which served as inspiration to start writing her own poems.
When she started work as an artist's model, Siddall was in the enviable position of working at Mrs Tozer's millinery part-time and was thus ensured a regular wage even if modelling did not work out, an unusual opportunity for a woman of her time.
Siddall first met Walter Deverell in 1849, while she was working as a milliner in Cranbourne Alley, London. Whether Siddall had any artistic aspirations is unknown, though she loved poetry. She was employed as a model by Deverell and through him was introduced to the Pre-Raphaelites.
Though she was later touted for her beauty, Siddall was originally chosen as a model because of her plainness. At the time, Deverell was working on a large oil painting depicting a scene from Twelfth Night, showing Orsino, Feste, and Viola as Cesario. Like the rest of the Pre-Raphaelites, Deverell took his inspiration and forms from life rather than from an idealized or antique figure. He based his Orsino on himself, Feste on his friend Dante Rossetti. All that remained was to find a girl who could dress as a boy. This was the first painting Siddall ever sat for.
While posing for Millais' Ophelia in 1852, Siddall floated in a bathtub full of water to represent the drowning Ophelia. Millais painted daily into the winter putting lamps under the tub to warm the water. On one occasion the lamps went out and the water became icy cold. Millais, absorbed by his painting, did not notice and Siddall did not complain. After this she became very ill with a severe cold or pneumonia. Her father held Millais responsible and, under the threat of legal action, Millais paid her doctor's bills.
Elizabeth Siddall was the primary model and muse for Dante Gabriel Rossetti throughout most of his youth. Rossetti met her in 1849, when she was modelling for Deverell. By 1851, she was sitting for Rossetti and he began to paint her to the exclusion of almost all other models. Rossetti also stopped her from modelling for the other Pre-Raphaelites. The number of paintings he did of her are said to number in the thousands. Rossetti's drawings and paintings of Siddall culminated in Beata Beatrix which shows a praying Beatrice (from Dante Alighieri) painted in 1863, a year after her death.
After becoming engaged to Rossetti, Siddall began to study with him. She also painted a self-portrait, which differs from the idealised beauty portrayed by the Pre-Raphaelites. It is significant because it shows her features through her own eyes, not idealised as in the majority of portraits. In 1855, art critic John Ruskin began to subsidise her career and paid £150 per year in exchange for all the drawings and paintings she produced. She produced many sketches and watercolours as well as one oil painting. Her sketches are laid out in a fashion similar to Pre-Rapaelite compositions illustrating Arthurian legend and other idealized medieval themes. During this period Siddall began to write poetry, often with dark themes about lost love or the impossibility of true love. "Her verses were as simple and moving as ancient ballads; her drawings were as genuine in their medieval spirit as much more highly finished and competent works of Pre-Raphaelite art," wrote critic William Gaunt. Both Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown supported and admired her work.
An exhibition, entitled 'Beyond Ophelia', of 12 artworks created by Siddal and owned by the National Trust are on display at Wightwick Manor during 2018. Only the second solo exhibition of her work, the exhibition examines Lizzie's career, artistic style, subject matter, the prejudice she faced as a female artist; whilst also examining the Manders of Wightwick's collection habits- Rosalie and Geoffrey Mander bought her work in the 1960s and gave it to the National Trust.

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