Editing Elizabeth Siddal (section)

{{Short description|Pre-Raphaelite model, artist, and poet (1829–1862)}}
{{good article}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2012}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2023}}
{{Infobox person
|name        = Elizabeth Siddal
|birth_name  = Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall
|image       = Siddal-photo.jpg
|caption     = Siddal, {{circa|1860}}
|birth_date  = {{birth date|df=y|1829|7|25}}
|birth_place = [[Holborn]], London, England
|death_date  = {{death date and age|df=y|1862|2|11|1829|7|25}}
|death_place = [[Blackfriars, London]], England
|burial_place= [[Highgate Cemetery]], London
|occupation  = {{cslist|Artist|poet|artist's model}}
|other_names = Elizabeth Rossetti 
|spouse      = {{marriage|[[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]]|23 May 1860}}
}}

'''Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall''' (25 July 1829 – 11 February 1862), better known as '''Elizabeth Siddal''' (a spelling she adopted in 1853{{efn|At the suggestion of her future husband Dante Gabriel Rossetti, she shortened her surname to Siddal. She was also known by the [[diminutive]]s such as '''Lizzie''', '''the Sid''', '''Gug''', '''Guggums''', and '''Dove'''.{{sfn |Sonstroem |1970 |p=[https://archive.org/details/rossettifairlady0000sons/page/44/mode/2up 45]}}<ref name="COVE 2019">{{cite web |title=Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Head of Elizabeth Siddal (1855) |website=Cove |date=2019-12-17 |url=https://editions.covecollective.org/content/dante-gabriel-rossetti-head-elizabeth-siddal-1855 |access-date=2023-05-04 |archive-date=4 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230504235706/https://editions.covecollective.org/content/dante-gabriel-rossetti-head-elizabeth-siddal-1855 |url-status=live }}</ref> Her first signed work in 1853 bears the signature '''E. E. Siddal'''.<ref name="Snow 2023">{{cite web |last=Snow |first=Emily |title=7 Pre-Raphaelite Artworks by Elizabeth Siddal |website=TheCollector |date=2023-03-06 |at=6. ''The Lady of Shalott'', by Elizabeth Siddal |url=https://www.thecollector.com/pre-raphaelite-artworks-by-elizabeth-siddal/ |access-date=2023-04-15 |archive-date=15 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230415213236/https://www.thecollector.com/pre-raphaelite-artworks-by-elizabeth-siddal/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Her legal surname name after her marriage was '''Rossetti'''.<ref name="Sheffield Independent Eliza Eleanor Rossetti's Obituary 1862">{{cite news |title=Death of a Lady from an Overdose of Laudanum |newspaper=Sheffield Independent |location=Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England |date=15 February 1862 |department=Miscellaneous |page=3 |oclc=610063112 |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000181/18620215/005/0003 |url-access=subscription |via=British Newspaper Archive}} Eliza Eleanor Rossetti's Obituary</ref> }}), was an English artist, [[Model (art)|art model]], and poet. Siddal was perhaps the most significant of the female models who posed for the [[Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood]]. Their ideas of female beauty were fundamentally influenced and personified by her. [[Walter Deverell]] and [[William Holman Hunt]] painted Siddal, and she was the model for [[John Everett Millais]]'s famous painting [[Ophelia (painting)|''Ophelia'']] (1852). Early in her relationship with [[Dante Gabriel Rossetti]], Siddal became his [[Muse (source of inspiration)|muse]] and exclusive model, and he portrayed her in almost all his early artwork depicting women.

Siddal became an artist in her own right and was the only woman to exhibit at an 1857 Pre-Raphaelite exhibition. Significant collections of her artworks can be found at [[Wightwick Manor]] and the [[Ashmolean Museum]]. Sickly and melancholic during the last decade of her life, Siddal died of a [[laudanum]] overdose in 1862 during her second year of marriage to Rossetti.

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