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On 13th December 1824 [her father] Charles Crooke Siddall (age 23) and [her mother] Elizabeth Eleanor Evans were married at Hornsey Rise, Islington.
Charles Crooke Siddall: Around 1801 he was born.
On 25th July 1829 Elizabeth Siddal was born to Charles Crooke Siddall (age 28) and Elizabeth Eleanor Evans at 7 Charles Street, Hatton Garden. She was baptised 23rd August 1830 at St Andrew's Church, Holborn [Map].
1850. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 21). "Rosso Vestita" i.e. "Dressed in Red". Model Elizabeth Siddal (age 20).
1850. Walter Deverell (age 23). "Twelfth Night". Model for Viola, left, Elizabeth Siddal (age 20), model, right, the jester Feste, [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 21).
Around 1851. John Everett Millais 1st Baronet (age 21). Study for Ophelia. Model Elizabeth Siddal (age 21).
1851. William Holman Hunt (age 23). "Valentine rescuing Sylvia from Proteus". Two Gentlemen of Verona Act Five Scene 4. Model for Sylvia, kneeling, Elizabeth Siddal (age 21).
Proteus: Two Gentlemen of Verona Act Five Scene 4. Proteus. Valentine!
1851. William Holman Hunt (age 23). "A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids". Model for central figure holding bowl with sponge is Elizabeth Siddal (age 21).
The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais V1 Chapter 4. Miss Siddal (age 21) had a trying experience whilst acting as a model for "Ophelia." In order that the artist might get the proper set of the garments in water and the right atmosphere and aqueous effects, she had to lie in a large bath filled with water, which was kept at an even temperature by lamps placed beneath. One day, just as the picture was nearly finished, the lamps went out unnoticed by the artist, who was so intenselv absorbed in his work that he thought of nothing else, and the poor lady was kept floating in the cold water till she was quite benumbed. She herself never complained of this, but the result was that she contracted a severe cold, and her father (an auctioneer at Oxford) wrote to Millais, threatening him with an action for £50 damages for his carelessness. Eventually the matter was satisfactorily compromised. Millais paid the doctor's bill; and Miss Siddal, quickly recovering, was none the worse for her cold bath.
1851 to 1852. John Everett Millais 1st Baronet (age 21). "Ophelia". Hamlet Act IV Scene 7 Part IV in which Queen Gertrude describes Ophelia's death to Laertes. Millais painted the scene near Tolworth, Surrey [Map] using the River Hogsmill. Elizabeth Siddal (age 21) modelled in a bath-tub at 7 Gower Street, Camden [Map]. The initials PRB bottom right next to his signature. See Ophelia by John Everett MIllais.
1851. C1851 Surrey Southwark Kent Road Page 12. 8 Kent Road.
[her father] Charles Crooke Siddall (age 50). Head. 50.
[her brother] Charles Robert Siddall (age 23). Son. 24.
Elizabeth Siddal (age 21). Daughter. 21.
1853. Elizabeth Siddal (age 23). Lady of Shalott. Part 3 Stanza 5: "Out flew the web and floated wide; The mirror crack'd from side to side".
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
1853. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 24). "The First Anniversary of the Death of Beatrice" or "Dante receiving visitors on the anniversary of Beatrice's death". Model Elizabeth Siddal (age 23). The picture was bought by Francis McCracken who wrote to Rossetti on the 14th of May 1854: "I had an idea of an intention of the possibility of a suggestion that the lady in my drawing should be Gemma Donati whom Dante married afterwards and for that reason meant to have put the Donati arms on the dresses of the three visitors, but could not find a suitable way of doing so. The visitors are unnamed in the text. But I had an idea also of connecting the pitying lady with another part of the V[ita] N[uova] and in part the sketch is full of notions of my own in this way, which would only be cared about by one to whom Dante was a chief study".
1854. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 25). Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal (age 24). Watercolor.
1854. Elizabeth Siddal (age 24). "Two Lovers listening to Music", pen brown ink.
1854. Elizabeth Siddal (age 24). "Pippa Passes",
1854. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 25). Elizabeth Siddal (age 24) Reading.
Around 1854. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 25). Elizabeth Siddal (age 24) - Study for Delia in 'The Return of Tibullus to Delia'.
1854. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 25). Elizabeth Siddal (age 24) Seated at a Window.
Between 1854 and 1855. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 25). Elizabeth Siddal (age 24) Seated at an Easel, Painting.
Around 1854. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 25). Elizabeth Siddal (age 24) Seated on the Ground.
Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1854. III. Monday, ½ past 6 o'clock. [April, 1854.]
Dear Allingham,
I suppose you are gone to bask in the Southon [sic] ray. I should follow, but feel very sick, and moreover have lunched late to-day with Ruskin. We read half the Day and Night Songs together, and I crave him the book. He was most delighted, and said some of it was heavenly.
I took Miss S (age 24). to Hastings, and Bessie P. behaved like a brick. I have told Ruskin of my pupil, and he yearneth. Perhaps I may come down on Anna Mary to-night, as I believe she leaves on Wednesday with Barbara S. I am going now to my family, and if you feel inclined to come down to 45, Upper A. St., we will go to the Hermitage together. Otherwise I am not sure of going.
Your G. D. R.
Note. On April 14th [1854] of this year, a few days before the date of this letter. Rossetti wrote to Madox Brown: "Mac Cracken sent my drawing [Dante drawing an Angel in Memory of Beatrice] to Ruskin, who the other day wrote me an incredible letter about it, remaining mine respectfully (!), and wanting to call. I of course stroked him down in my answer, and yesterday he called. His manner was more agreeable than I had always expected. ... He seems in a mood to make my fortune."
A few months later Ruskin wrote to Rossetti: "I forgot to say also that I really do covet your drawings as much as I covet Turner's; only it is useless self-indulgence to buy Turner's, and useful self-indulgence to buy yours. Only I won't have them after they have been more than nine times rubbed entirely out — remember that."
Miss S. was Miss Siddal, with whom Rossetti had fallen in love so early as 1850. though it was not till 1860 that he married her. His brother has told us how her striking face and "coppery-golden hair" were discovered, as it were, by Deverell (age 23) in a bonnet-shop. She sat to him, to Holman Hunt, and to Millais, but most of all to Rossetti. The following account was given me one day as I sat in the studio of Mr. Arthur Hughes, surrounded by some beautiful sketches he had lately taken on the coast of Cornwall:—
"Deverell accompanied his mother one day to a milliner's. Through an open door he saw a girl working with her needle; he got his mother to ask her to sit to him. She was the future Mrs. Rossetti. Millais painted her for his Ophelia— wonderfully like her. She was tall and slender, with red coppery hair and bright consumptive complexion, though in these early years she had no striking signs of ill health. She was exceedingly quiet, speaking very little. She had read Tennyson, having first come to know something about him by finding one or two of his poems on a piece of paper which she brought home to her mother wrapped round a pat of butter. Rossetti taught her to draw. She used to be drawing while sitting to him. Her drawings were beautiful, but without force. They were feminine likenesses of his own."
Rossetti's pet names for her were Guggum, Guggums. or Gug. A child one day overheard him as he stood before his easel, utter to himself over and over again the words. "Guggum, Guggum." "All the Ruskins were most delighted with Guggum." he wrote. "John Ruskin said she was a noble, curious creature, and his father said by her look and manner she might have been a countess." Ruskin used to call her Ida.
Anna Mary was Miss Howitt (atterwards Mrs. Howitt-Watts). The Hermitage (Highgate Rise), her father's house, was swept away long ago.
Barbara S. was Barbara Leigh Smith (afterwards Madame Bodichon). by whose munificence was laid the foundation of Girton College. Cambridge, the first institution in which a university education was criven to women. Rossetti wrote to his sister on November 8, 1853: — "Ah, if you were only like Miss Barbara Smith! a young lady I meet at the Howitts', blessed with large rations of tin, fat, enthusiasm, and golden hair, who thinks nothing of climbing up a mountain in breeches, or wading through a stream in none, in the sacred name of pigment." "She was a most admirable woman," adds Mr. W. M. Rossetti, "full of noble zeal in every good cause, and endowed with a fine pictorial capacity."
Bessie P. was Miss Bessie Rayner Parkes. daughter of "Joe" Parkes, whom Carlyle hits off in his Reminiscences (vol. i. p. 254). afterwards Madame Belloc. In A Passing World she writes:—, 'Barbara Smith suggested the conception of Romola to George Eliot, who has thus sketched an immortal [?] portrait of her face and bearing in early youth.'
Speaking of Rossetti at the time of his visit to Hastings, she says:— "There was about him in his youth a singular good breeding, enforced and cherished by all the women of his family. ... I did not think his wife in the least like 'a countess,'" she adds; "but she had an unworldly simplicity and purity of aspect which Rossetti has recorded in his pencil drawings of her face. Millais has also given this look in his Ophelia, for which she was the model. The expression of Beatrice [Beata Beatrix, now in the National Gallery] was not hers. ... She had the look of one who read her Bible and said her prayers every night, which she probably did."
In 45, Upper Albany Street (now 166, Albany Street), Rossetti's father died. Here the painter, on the death of his wife, sought refuge for a time.
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Letters of William Allingham. Arthur Hughes to William Allingham. 6 Upper Belgrave Place, Thursday [1855].
Dear Allingham, — I am at length able to send you the drawings you were good enough to covet, having got them at last out of the clutches of unsuccessful photography. Writing this under a visitation of fog such as you see nowhere but here I expect. You are free of such an atmosphere I trust. Your last letters at all events have breathed of the Sea pretty much — I should think your recreation in the water is over now. I suppose an extra long note is due from one who writes so seldom as I, but I have neither news nor thoughts worth supplying the want of news. You see I am still troubled with that unaffected modesty which has always so stood in the way of my advancement.
Do you know [her future husband] D. G. R. (age 26) and Munro are in Paris together, closing the Exhibition I suppose, tho' I rather expect the presence of Miss Siddal (age 25) in that Capital of pleasure was the stronger inducement for Rossetti's journey there. He has been making lots of lovely water-colors lately, most of them for Ruskin — which brings me to a matter of my own in connection with that Great Writer. You remember the picture of a girl you saw unfinished — and suggested my calling "Hide and Seek" — now completed and rejoicing in the more graceful title of "April Love."1 Ruskin saw, went into enthusiastic admiration, and brought his Father to try and induce him to purchase it, but alas fate willed otherwise, altho' the old gentleman's enthusiasm equalled if not surpassed Ruskin Junior's, I believe — and now Goodbye, if you care to write on safe arrival of these invaluable works of Art — tell me all you think about Maud because I like Maud very much and hear you do not.
Goodbye. Ever yours, Arthur Hughes.
Note 1. "April Love." Bought by William Morris at the Royal Academy Exhibition.
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1855. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 26). "Dante's Vision of Rachel and Leah". Model Elizabeth Siddal (age 25).
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
1855. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 26). Elizabeth Siddal (age 25) in a Chair.
1855. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 26). "The Annunciation". The model for the figure of the Virgin was Elizabeth Siddal (age 25).
1855. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 26). Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal (age 25). Pen and brown and black ink.
1856. Elizabeth Siddal (age 26). "Holy Family".
Diary of William Allingham. Early in 1856 Allingham received the first number of the Oxford and Cambridge Magazine praising The Germ and writing of Rossetti's illustration to Ailingham's poem, 'The Maids of Elfin Mere,' as 'the best drawing that has ever appeared in illustration of a book.' His annual visit to London, this year, took place in May, and one of his first calls was with Arthur Hughes upon Rossetti, who, however, was not at home, but whose picture of Dante's Dream was discovered somewhere in the room. It was put on the easel, and Allingham made a little note in his diary of the 'two lovely figures' and 'rainbow of angels.'1 The visitors also came upon his picture called 'Found,' in one of the many stages of its progress, — 'The calf in cart and bit of wall,' Allingham writes — that calf which grew so many times into a cow during the thirty years in which the picture was being painted.
He made many excursions, this month, with [her future husband] Rossetti (age 27) and Miss Siddal (age 26), and he was always of the 'assemblage' which gathered so frequently at Rossetti's rooms.
Note 1. Rossetti gave Allingham a pencil study for this picture, in which Allingham stood, for a few minutes, as model for profile and hand. It is now in Mrs. Allingham's possession.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1857. Other interruptions the workers had of a more welcome kind, when Ruskin or Madox Brown came down from London to look at what they were doing. There is a reflection of Ruskin's visit in a letter of mine written to Miss Charlotte Salt at the beginning of November, where it says, "Edward is still at Oxford, painting away busily," and adds that Ruskin had been down there the week before and pronounced Rossetti's picture to be "the finest piece of colour in the world." Then — under seal of secrecy — I whisper that "he chooses Edward's next to Rossetti's." About ten days later another letter breathes in awe-stricken distress the fact that Miss Siddal (age 27) is "ill again." The news had reached me through Edward, who had never even seen her, but so lived in Gabriel's life at that time as not only to share any trouble that Gabriel had, but also to impress real sadness for it upon another.
1857. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 28). A striking background of blue tiles, two queens playing on a clavichord with one hand each while their other hands play a set of bells and a lute. Two other ladies stand singing from sheet music. A red lily rises in the lower foreground. Elizabeth Siddal (age 27) was the model for the queen on the right.
1857. Elizabeth Siddal (age 27). "Clerk Saunders".
1857. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 28). "Mary Nazarene". The model for the Virgin was Elizabeth Siddal (age 27). The picture was exhibited in May 1857 at the Russell Place Pre-Raphaelite Exhibition,
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1858-1859. 1858 It was a bad time for several of the little circle. Miss Siddal (age 28) continued wretchedly out of health, and a long ill-ness of Mrs. Madox Brown's was weighing heavily on her husband. Edward writes to him: "I am so grieved to hear that your wife is so ill still — write me better news as soon as you can, I am very anxious for you. I don't go out yet — but I won't bother you about my little trouble when you are so unhappy. Wouldn't it be better to give up that little Academy for the present — it must jar on you." These last words refer to Madox Brown's incredible kindness in allowing me and Miss Seddon, sister to his dead friend Thomas Seddon the artist, to come and try to paint from a model in his studio. I remember how proud and pleased I was at the confidence Madox Brown placed in me when, during his wife's illness, he gave me leave to take his little three-year-old boy, "Nolly," back to my father's house with me for a few days.
1859. [her future husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 30). "The Bower Garden". Model Elizabeth Siddal (age 29). The picture was first purchased by Elizabeth Siddal. After his death it was purchased by James Leathart (age 39).
James Leathart: In 1820 he was born. Before 1880 he and Maria Hedley were married. In 1895 he died.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. Dear Lizzie Rossetti (age 30) laughed to find that she and Swinburne had such shocks of the same coloured hair, and one night when we went in our thousands to see "Colleen Bawn," she declared that as she sat at one end of the row we filled and he at the other, a boy who was selling books of the play looked at Swinburne and took fright, and then, when he came round to where she was, started again with terror, muttering to himself "There 's another of 'em!" Gabriel commemorated one view of her appearance in his rhyme beginning "There is a poor creature named Lizzie, Whose aspect is meagre and frizzy," and there, so far as I remember, his muse halted; but he completed another verse on her to her great satisfaction, thus:
There is a poor creature named Lizzie,
Whose pictures are dear at a tizzy;
And of this the great proof
Is that all stand aloof
From paying that sum unto Lizzie.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. 1860 A five or six months' experience of housekeeping in Russell Place did not teach me much, though a couple of small drawings by Edward on the back of my first account-book shew his impression that I practised housewifery as well as music. Light-hearted indifference, however, to many things generally regarded as essential lent boldness to domestic arrangements, and I remember thinking it quite natural that in the middle of the morning I should ask our only maid — a pretty one — to stand for me that I might try to draw her; to which she, being good-tempered as will as pretty, cheerfully consented. This poor little drawing was to have been one of several illustrations that Mrs. Rossetti (age 30) and I were to make for Fairy Tales written by ourselves. I made one, and Lizzie began another, I believe, but nothing came of it It is pathetic to think how we women longed to keep pace with the men, and how gladly they kept us by them until their pace quickened and we had to fall behind. It was the same a few years later with the Du Mauriers, I remember he brought his handsomt fiancée Miss Wightwick, to see us, and she and I took counsel together about praftising wood-engraving in order to reproduce the drawings of the men we loved. I had begun it already, but she, though eagerly interested, had scarcely seen the tools required for the art, and I do not know how far she went in it. I can recall Du Maurier's distress though, when she drove a sharp graver into her hand one day. I stopped, as so many women do, well on this side of tolerable skill, daunted by the path which has to be followed absolutely alone if the end is to be reached. Morris was a pleased man when he found that his wife could embroider any design that he made, and did not allow her talent to remain idle. With Mrs. Rossetti it was a different matter, for I think she had original power, but with her, too, art was a plant that grew in the garden of love, and strong personal feeling was at the root of it; one sees in her black-and-white designs and beautiful little water-colours Gabriel always looking over her shoulder, and sometimes taking pencil or brush from her hand to complete the thing she had begun.
The question of her long years of ill-health has often puzzled me; as to how it was possible for her to suffer so much without ever developing a specific disease; and after putting together what I knew of her and what I have learnt in passing through life, it seems to me that Dr. Acland's diagnosis of her condition in 1855 must have been shrewd, sympathetic, and true. He is reported by Gabriel as saying, after careful examination and many professional visits, that her lungs, if at all affected, were only slightly so, and that he thought the leading cause of her illness lay in "mental power long pent up and lately overtaxed"; which words seem to me a clue to the whole matter. This delicately organized creature, who had spent the first sixteen years of her life in circumstances that practically forbade the unfolding of her powers, had been suddenly brought into the warmth and light of Gabriel's genius and love, under which her whole inner nature had quickened and expanded until her bodily strength gave way; but [her future husband] Rossetti (age 31) himself did not realize this so as to spare her the forcing influence, or restrift his demands upon her imagination and sympathy. It is a tragic enough thought, but one is driven to believe that if such a simple remedy as what is now called a "restcure" had been known of and sought for her then, her life might have been preserved. However, let us follow what we know.
Gabriel dreaded bringing her to live in London, where she was so often ill, but after vainly seeking for a house that would suit them at Hampstead or Highgate they resolved, as she seemed to have gained a little strength since her marriage, to try the experiment of wintering at Blackfriars. The landlord of Chatham Place oflFered them the second floor of the next house in addition to the one that Rossetti already had, and by making a communication between the two houses they gained an excellent set of rooms. AH seemed to promise well, and for a brief time I think it was so. We received a note from Gabriel telling us they had "hung up their Japanese brooms," — a kind of yardlong whisk of peacock's feathers — and made a home for themselves. He was happy and proud in putting his wife's drawings round one of the rooms, and in a letter to Allingham says: "Her last designs would I am sure surprise and delight you, and I hope she is going to do better now — if she can only add a little more of the precision in carrying out which it so much needs health and strength to attain, she will, I am sure, paint such pictures as no woman has painted yet."
We used to go and see them occasionally in the evenings, when the two men would spend much of the time in Gabriel's studio, and Lizzie and I began to make friends. She did not talk happily when we were alone, but was excited and melancholy, though with much humour and tenderness as well; and Gabriel's presence seemed needed to set her jarring nerves straight, for her whole manner changed when he came into the room. 1 see them now as he took his place by her on the sofa and her excitement sank back into peace.
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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. 1860 One evening our errand to Chatham Place was to borrow a lay-figure, and we gaily carried it off without any wrapper in a four-wheeled cab, whose driver soon drew up at a brilliantly lighted public-house, saying that he could go no further, and under the glare of the gas lamps we had to decant our strange companion into a fresh cab.
I never had but one note from Lizzie (age 30), and I kept it for love of her even then. Let it stand here in its whole short length as a memento of one of the Blackfriars evenings, and in the hope that some one beside myself may feel the pathos of its tender playfulness.
My dear little Georgie,
I hope you intend coming over with Ned tomorrow evening like a sweetmeat^ it seems so long since I saw you dear. Janey (age 20) will be here I hope to meet you.
With a willow-pattern dish full of love to you and Ned,
Lizzie.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. Before 23rd May 1860. Since the time that [her future husband] Rossetti (age 32) was called away from Oxford, in October, 1857, by the illness of Miss Siddal (age 30), he and Edward (age 26) had been less together, but there had been no decrease of affection between them, and so it was of the most vital interest to us when we learnt that Gabriel was to be married about the same time as ourselves. He and Edward at once built up a plan for our all four meeting in Paris as soon as possible afterwards; I went home to Manchester to make my preparations, and it was decided that the fourth anniversary of our engagement, the 9th of June, should be our wedding-day. The conditions on which we started life were, practically no debts, except of work to Mr. Flint, and the possession of about £30 in ready money; and I brought with me a small deal table with a drawer in it that held my wood-engraving tools. Three days before our marriage, however, came a note from the unfailing Mr. Flint: "The two pen-and-ink drawings are to hand to-day. I enclose order for £25 which you may need just now." So here was riches.
On 23rd May 1860 Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 32) and Elizabeth Siddal (age 30) were married at St Clement's Church, Hastings.
After 23rd May 1860. [her husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 32). Portrait of Elizabeth Siddal (age 30) painted shortly after their marriage ntitld "Regina Cordium" i.e. "Queen of Hearts".
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. 9th June 1860. The 9th of June fell on a Saturday, and we decided to go no further that day than to Chester, where we should see its curious streets and attend service at the Cathedral [Map] on Sunday; [her husband] Gabriel (age 32) and his wife (age 30) were by this time in Paris [Map], and we hoped to join them a few days later. But this was not in store for us, for unhappily Edward (age 26) had been caught in a rain-storm a day or two before and already had a slight sore-throat, which now so quickly grew worse that by noon on Sunday he was almost speechless from it and in the hands of a strange doctor. This illness was a sharp check, and we found ourselves shut up for some days in a dreary hotel in an unknown place; but a gleam of satisfaction reached us when the doctor spoke of me to Edward as "your good lady," and gave me directions about what was to be done for the patient, with no apparent suspicion that I had not often nursed him before. Trusting in this and in some half-used reels of sewing cotton ostentatiously left about, as well as a display of boots which had already been worn, we felt great confidence that no one would guess how ignominiously newly-married we were.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. After 9th June 1860. It was quite clear that we must give up Paris and get to our own home as soon as the doctor gave Edward (age 26) leave to travel; so ruefully enough I wrote to [her husband] Gabriel (age 32) and told him how things were; and his answer was a comfort to us, for he reported that they were both tired of "dragging about," and looked forward with pleasure to sitting down again with their friends in London as soon as possible. "Lizzie (age 30) and I are likely to come back with two dogs," he continues, "a big one and a little one. We have called the latter Punch in memory partly of a passage in Pepys's Diary, "But in the street. Lord, how I did laugh to hear poor common persons call their fat child Punch, which name I do perceive to be good for all that is short and thick." We have got the book with us from Mudie's, and meant to have yelled over it in company if you had come to Paris. We are now reading Boswell's Johnson, which is almost as rich in some parts." This reading of Boswell resulted in the water-colour drawing of "Dr. Johnson at the Mitre "which Rossetti brought back with him from Paris.
Samuel Johnson: On 18th September 1709 he was born. On 13th December 1784 he died.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. [her husband] Rossetti (age 32) and his wife (age 30), after their return from Paris, took a lodging at Hampstead, but she was so ill at first that we never saw her till near the end of July, when to our great delight a day was fixed for the deferred meeting, and Gabriel suggested that it should take place at the Zoological Gardens. "The Wombat's Lair" was the assignation that he gave to the Madox Browns and to us. A mention of this meeting in a letter that I wrote next day gives the impression of the actual time: "She was well enough to see us, and I find her as beautiful as imagination, poor thing."
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1860. I wish I could recall more details of that day - of the wombat's reception of us, and of the other beasts we visited - but can only remember a passing call on the owls, between one of whom and [her husband] Gabriel (age 32) there was a feud. The moment their eyes met they seemed to rush at each other, Gabriel rattling his stick between the cage bars furiously and the owl almost barking with rage. Lizzie's (age 30) slender, elegant figure - tall for those days, but I never knew her actual height - comes back to me, in a graceful and simple dress, the incarnate opposite of the "tailor-made" young lady. We went home with them to their rooms at Hampstead, and I know that I then received an impression which never wore away, of romance and tragedy between her and her husband. I see her in the little upstairs bedroom with its lattice window, to which she carried me when we arrived, and the mass of her beautiful deep-red hair as she took off her bonnet: she wore her hair very loosely fastened up, so that it fell in soft, heavy wings. Her complexion looked as if a rose tint lay beneath the white skin, producing a most soft and delicate pink for the darkest flesh-tone. Her eyes were of a kind of golden brown - agate-colour is the only word I can think of to describe them - and wonderfully luminous: in all Gabriel's drawings of her and in the type she created in his mind this is to be seen. The eyelids were deep, but without any languor or drowsiness, and had the peculiarity of seeming scarcely to veil the light in her eyes when she was looking down.
Whilst we were in her room she shewed me a design she had just made, called "The Woeful Victory" - then the vision passes.
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough, a canon regular of the Augustinian Guisborough Priory, Yorkshire, formerly known as The Chronicle of Walter of Hemingburgh, describes the period from 1066 to 1346. Before 1274 the Chronicle is based on other works. Thereafter, the Chronicle is original, and a remarkable source for the events of the time. This book provides a translation of the Chronicle from that date. The Latin source for our translation is the 1849 work edited by Hans Claude Hamilton. Hamilton, in his preface, says: "In the present work we behold perhaps one of the finest samples of our early chronicles, both as regards the value of the events recorded, and the correctness with which they are detailed; Nor will the pleasing style of composition be lightly passed over by those capable of seeing reflected from it the tokens of a vigorous and cultivated mind, and a favourable specimen of the learning and taste of the age in which it was framed." Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1861. I must not forget to mention the transporting satisfaction of Miss Sampson, who happened to be staying for a few days with us and had the unexpected bliss of receiving Edward's son in her arms and then going back to Birmingham with the story. To this time belongs a clear recollection of the appearance of Janey (age 21) and Lizzie (age 31) as they sat side by side one day when in a good hour it had occurred to them to come together to see the mother and child. They were as unlike as possible and quite perfect as a contrast to each other; also, at the moment neither of them was under the cloud of ill-health, so that, as an Oriental might say, the purpose of the Creator was manifest in them. The difference between the two women may be typified broadly as that between sculpture and painting, Mrs. Morris being the statue and Mrs. Rossetti the pidure: the grave nobility and colourless perfeftion of feature in the one was made human by kindness that looked from "her great eyes standing far apart," while a wistfullness that often accompanied the brilliant loveliness and grace of the other gave an unearthly character to her beauty. "Was there ever two such beautiful ladies!" said dame Wheeler, with a distinct sense of ownership in one of them, as soon as they were gone.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1861. To these early days in Great Russell Street belongs a note I received from [her husband] Gabriel (age 32), one part of which I can never read unmoved: "By the bye, Lizzie (age 31) has been talking to me of parting with a certain small wardrobe to you. But don't let her, please. It looks such a bad omen for us." Seldom did I come so near the real Gabriel as this. More often he seemed to wear a surcoat of jesting; as when he wrote, "Lizzie to-day enters on the adventure of Hog's Hole," by which I understood her to be gone to Red House — or sent the message, "My qualified love to the Pang of your Life," a form of remembrance to Edward suggested by one of the many nonsense verses he had made:
There is a poor painter named Jones,
For whose conduct no genius atones.
The course of his life
Is a pang to the wife.
And a plague to the neighbours of Jones.
The rhyme he found for his own name was most skilful:
There was a poor chap called Rossetti;
As a painter with many kicks met he.
And that on Gambart, the pi Aure-dealer, must surely have won the admiration even of its subject had he ever been privileged to hear it:
There is an old he-wolf named Gambart,
Beware of him if thou a lamb art.
Else thy tail and thy toes
And thine innocent nose
Will be ground by the grinders of Gambart.
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Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1861. Lizzie's (age 31) nurse was a delightful old country woman, whose words and ways we quoted for years afterwards; her native wit and simple wisdom endeared her to both Gabriel and Lizzie, and were the best possible medicine for their overstrained feelings. Naturally, after meeting her at Blackfriars, we invited her to come to us.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1861. 1861 This was a year of wonders quite difFerent from those of 1856, for all its marvels were visible to others beside ourselves. Let who will smile, but to most people the sight of a first child is one of the miracles of life, and it is noteworthy that Morris, [her husband] Rossetti (age 32), and Edward now went through this experience within a few months of each other. First came the owner of the little garment that was being fashioned for her when we were at Red House the summer before, and then, just as we were taking it for granted that all would go as well in one household as another, there was illness and anxiety and suspense at Chatham Place, and poor Lizzie (age 31) was only given back to us with empty arms. This was not a light ming to Gabriel, and though he wrote about it, "She herself is so far the most important that I can feel nothing but thankfulness," the dead child certainly lived in its father's heart. "I ought to have had a little girl older than she is," he once said wistfully as he looked at a friend's young daughter of seven years.
Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones 1861. [Before 2nd May 1861]. When we went to see Lizzie (age 31) for the first time after her recovery, we found her sitting in a low chair with the childless cradle on the floor beside her, and she looked like Gabriel's "Ophelia" when she cried with a kind of soft wildness as we came in, "Hush, Ned, you'll waken it!" How often has it seemed to us that if that little baby had lived she, too, might have done so, and Gabriel's terrible melancholy would never have mastered him.
Before 2nd May 1861 [her daughter] Stillborn Child was born to [her husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 32) and Elizabeth Siddal (age 31). See Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones.
Before 11th February 1862. Elizabeth Siddal (age 32). "Madonna and Child".
On 11th February 1862 at twenty past seven in the morning Elizabeth Siddal (age 32) overdosed on laudanum at 14 Chatham Place. Possibly suicide - there may have been a note that said "look after Harry (her invalid brother)" which Ford Madox Brown (age 40) persuaded [her husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 33) to burn. Shortly after her death Sarah Cox aka Fanny Cornforth (age 27) moved into the family home to become housekeeper to Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
On 17th February 1862 Elizabeth Siddal (deceased) was buried in the Rossetti Family Grave. Her husband placed his poems in the coffin with her remains.
From 1864 to 1870. [her former husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 35). "Beata Beatrix". Model Elizabeth Siddal.
Diary of William Allingham. 9th November 1866. On my return find a parcel by rail from Gabriel containing the portfolio of photographs from drawings by his poor Wife [Elizabeth Siddal]; they are naturally full of his influence.1 Also of two very beautiful pencil portraits of her by his hand, one a head, the other full-length.
Short, sad and strange her life ; it must have seemed to her like a troubled dream. She was sweet, gentle, and kindly, and sympathetic to art and poetry. As to art-power, it is not easy to make as much as a guess ; and this portfolio hardly helps. But it is very interesting, at least to those who knew her. Her pale face, abundant red hair, and long thin limbs were strange and affecting — never beautiful in my eyes.
Note 1. These are now in Mrs. Allingham's possession.
In October 1869 [her former husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 41) exhumed the remains of Elizabeth Siddal to retrieve the book of poems he had placed in her coffin seven years previously. He published the works the following year.
On 9th April 1882 [her former husband] Dante Gabriel Rossetti (age 53) died. He was buried at All Saints Church, Birchington on Sea [Map]. There is a Celtic Cross marking his grave commissioned by his mother [her former mother-in-law] Frances Mary Lavinia Polidori (age 81), designed by Ford Madox Brown (age 60) and erected in the presence of his brother [her former brother-in-law] William Michael Rossetti (age 52) and sister [her former sister-in-law] Christina Georgina Rossetti (age 51) as written on the base of the cross.
Letters of Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1854. Tuesday May 2, 1854. My Dear Allingham,
I have heard from Miss Smith from near Hastings to-day about Miss Siddal, who, she seems to think, is worse, and she encloses a letter from Miss Parkes also tending to make me very uneasy. However, | have one of Lizzy’s own (29th April, Miss Smith's being 1st May), which speaks of no change for the worse, so that I hope it may be a mistake. I shall go down to Hastings to-morrow after my father’s funeral if possible, and should go to-day but for that. If, however, I should be quite unable to go to-morrow, I shall go Thursday. There seems to be some talk of getting her into a Sussex hospital till she can enter the Brompton.
I have called because I wish you would get those wood-blocks (at any rate 2 or 3) sent by Routledge at once, tf possible, to 45, Upper Albany Street. If they come in time I will take them to Hastings, otherwise they can be sent after me. I have made a sketch for one, and must set about them and other slight things to raise tin. You may depend on my stopping the 30s. you lent me out of the first money for you. I am sorry to have broken my promise last week, but will redeem it very soon. I may perhaps call here again after going some- where else now. But write lest I should not be able.
Yours D.G.R.
Note. The wood-blocks were for illustrations of Allingham’s forthcoming Day and Night Songs.
Cansick's Monumental Inscriptions Volume 2 Highgate Cemetery. Highgate Cemetery. To the Dear Memory of My husband, Gabriel Rossetti, Born at Vasto Ammone, In the kingdom of Naples, 28th February, 1783; Died in London, 26th April, 1854, "He shall return no more, nor see his native country." — Jeremiahi xxii. 10. "Now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly." — Hebrews xi. 16.
Ah dio — ajutami tu. Also to the Memory of Elizabeth Eleanor, Wife of D. G. Rossetti (Eldest son of the above). Who departed on the 11th February, 1862, Aged 30.