The Ghost of Elizabeth Siddal

William Rossetti : Is there any spirit present?   

Yes. 

William Rossetti: Name? 

ERSS.

Gabriel Rossetti: That means E. Rossetti.

 William Rossetti: Are you Lizzie?   

Yes.

Adapted from William Rossetti’s seance diary.

Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall (later changed to Siddal) was born in London in 1829, and, despite being a model and muse for the Pre-Raphaelite artists and gaining John Ruskin’s support for her own artistic endeavours, little is known of her life. There are her sketches, paintings and drafts of poems, but she left no diaries and few letters remain. Her story, therefore, was largely told by people who knew her, and many who didn’t know her quite so well. Such narratives offer varying levels of factual accuracy, as far as it can be determined.

For instance, there’s some debate about where she was “discovered”. Was it in a hat shop? And when? Some accounts claim she was only 17, but census information shows she was in fact 20 when she met Walter Deverell, the first artist to employ her as a model. And Elizabeth herself told friends she’d become known to the Deverell family through her work as a dressmaker.

She agreed to model for Deverell in 1849 for his portrayal of Viola in the guise of Cesario, a character from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. This helped launch her, and thereafter she was much in demand.

The Sid or Miss Sid, as she was called by the artists she sat for, was striking in ways that appealed to the Pre-Raphaelites. She was pale, tall and thin, with a long, elegant neck and a mass of rich auburn hair. Throughout her career as a model, she worked with several artists, including William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais. One of the most famous paintings featuring Elizabeth is Millais’ Ophelia.

In 1851, she met Dante Gabriel Rossetti and became his model and muse. Keen to develop her artistic skills, she eventually became his pupil too, and a more intimate relationship blossomed. After many promises of marriage over several years, and possible breakups along the way, the couple eventually tied the knot in 1860.

It’s debatable whether Rossetti still loved Elizabeth at this point. Shortly before the marriage, he may have been in a relationship with Fanny Cornforth, another of his models. But he might have felt pity for his “Guggums”, as he referred to Elizabeth, who was very ill when he promised to marry her if she would only get well.

But the marriage was not a long one. Within two years of the wedding, Elizabeth Siddal was dead. Following a stillbirth, she became more dependent on the laudanum she originally started taking for pain, and on the night she died, took too much. Whether this was suicide or an accidental overdose isn’t entirely clear.

Her husband took her untimely death badly. In the throes of grief, Rossetti placed a collection of his poems in the coffin. However, some years later, he applied for a licence to open the grave to retrieve them.

After Elizabeth’s death, the artist claimed he saw her ghost every night at the foot of his bed and was plagued by knocking and rapping at his home. There were seances at his studio, some attended by the artist Whistler, where Elizabeth came to him. And with his brother and others, he attended seances elsewhere in the hope of further communication. William Rossetti kept a seance diary detailing 20 circles. Elizabeth communicated with the sitters at several of these.

Bibliography

Pre-Raphaelites in the Spirit World: The Seance Diaries of William Michael Rossetti  edited by J. B. Bullen, Rosalind White, Lenore A. Beaky.

Elizabeth Siddal: Her Story  by Jan Marsh.