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Stories of supermodels, drugs, overdoses and obsession have been around for a little while longer than you might think, Tin Can looks at Lizzie Siddal, the woman behind Ophelia
Elizabeth Siddal, the world’s first supermodel was discovered in much the same way that today’s supers were picked up, Kate was in an airport, Naomi was hanging around with her mates in town on a Saturday afternoon and Lizzie, she was working in a millinery shop. Walter Deverell probably couldn’t believe his luck when he found her.
Lizzie embodied everything that was considered to be beautiful in the mid 1800s and Deverell immediately asked her to model for him, painting her as Viola in his depiction of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
Below: Deverell's Twelth Night
A Tribute to Lizzie Siddal
Lizzie went on to model for other Pre-Raphaelite artists and is most commonly recognised as Ophelia in John Everett Millais most famous work.
A Tribute to John Everett Millais
It was the charismatic Dante Gabriel Rossetti who drew and painted her obsessively though, and encouraged Lizzie in her own artwork and poetry.
A Tribute to Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Their relationship was intense and dramatic, imagine modern day supermodel meets charismatic and brooding photographer. Lizzie came from a working-class family and Rossetti feared introducing her to his parents. She was also the victim of harsh criticism from Rossetti's sisters. The knowledge that the family would not approve the wedding contributed to Rossetti putting it off and they were engaged for ten years, with Rossetti breaking it off several times just before the planned ceremony. Lizzie also suspected, with some justification, that Rossetti was always seeking to replace her with a younger muse, which led to frequent depressive periods and illness.
When the couple did finally marry in Hastings without any family or friends present, Lizzie was so frail from illness and depression caused by the stress of her unpredictable partner that she had to be carried to the church, despite it being just a five minute walk from where the couple was staying.
Following the long awaited marriage, the couple didn’t have much time left together. Lizzie gave birth to a stillborn child and found herself with a serious addiction to Laudanum. She died in 1862 through an overdose.
The rest of Lizzie’s tale is eerily famous for its gothic Victorian obsession with morbidity: Rossetti, chronically addicted to drugs and alcohol convinced himself that he was going blind and couldn't paint. He began to write poetry again but before publishing his newer poems he became obsessed with retrieving the poems he had slipped into Elizabeth's hair as she lay in her coffin. Rossetti and Howell, his agent, applied to the Home Secretary for an order to have her coffin exhumed from it's resting place in Highgate Cemetery to retrieve the manuscript. This was done in the dead of night to avoid public curiosity and attention and Rossetti was not present. Howell reported to Rossetti that Lizzie’s body was in pristine condition and that she still looked beautiful. Her hair was said to have continued to grow after death so that it filled the coffin. The poems were retrieved although a worm had burrowed through the book so that some of them were difficult to read. Rossetti published the old poems with his newer ones; they were not well received by some critics because of their eroticism, and he was haunted by the exhumation through the rest of his life.
The tale adds to Lizzie’s legend and continues to capture the interest of Pre-Raphaelite and Lizzie Siddal enthusiasts all over the world.
The Legend of Lizzie Siddal and the Buried Manuscript
Tags: lizzie siddal highgate cemetery rossetti ophelia laudanum pre-raphaelite art depression addiction
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