BEAUTY OF ELIZABETH SIDDAL

ELIZABETH SIDDAL, BY ROSSETTI

The artist’s brother writes of her that she was truly a beautiful girl,—tall, with a stately throat and fine carriage, pink and white complexion, and massive, straight, coppery golden hair. Her heavy-lidded eyes were large and greenish blue. But, as this narrator says, it is not necessary to speak much about her appearance, “as the designs of Dante Rossetti speak for it better than I could do.” Her whole manner, in spite of her great beauty, was reserved, self-controlling, and “alien from approach.” Rossetti’s brother says that her talk was, in his experience, scanty; slight and scattered, with some amusing turns, and little to seize hold upon; little clue to her real self, or anything determinate.

But, alas! the beautiful Elizabeth was a sufferer from consumption, accompanied by neuralgia. For the neuralgia frequent doses of laudanum had been prescribed. Her condition was such toward the end that sometimes she was obliged to take one hundred drops at a time. On February 10, 1866, she dined at a hotel in London with her husband and Swinburne. She and Rossetti returned to their home about eight o’clock. She was about to go to bed at nine, when Dante Gabriel went out again. When he came back at half-past eleven the room was in darkness. He called to his wife; but received no reply. He found her in bed, unconscious. On the table was a vial. It had contained laudanum—it was empty.

He paid her the tribute of burying his poems with her. He had already paid her the great tribute of painting her, and that often. Those large, greenish blue eyes of hers were his guiding stars. Let him who will say that he rides fastest who rides alone. There are six great artists—and many more—to say him nay.

BEATA BEATRIX, BY ROSSETTI

A portrait of Elizabeth Siddal.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Fra Filippo Lippi	Edward C. Strutt
Rembrandt and His Work (8 vols.)	Wilhelm Bode
Rembrandt	R. Muther
The Rossettis	Elisabeth Luther Cary
L’Oeuvre de P. P. Rubens	Maximilian Rooses
Rubens (Masterpieces in Color Series)	S. L. Bensusan
Andrea del Sarto	H. Guinness
Sir Anthony Van Dyck	Lionel Cust

QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Subscribers desiring further information concerning this subject can obtain it by writing to

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LUCREZIA FEDI, By Andrea del Sarto