Valerie Meachum offers up an intricate, one of a kind needlepoint based on a Dante Gabriel Rossetti portrait of Lizzie Siddal. Available at etsy.com.
The hand-embroidered inscription on the linen border refers to a letter to the artist’s sister, the poet Christina Rossetti, in which he mentions a black silk dress Lizzie had recently made for herself and calls her a “rara avis in terra,” quoting the Satires of the classical Roman poet Juvenal, who wrote of “a rare bird in the lands, and very like a black swan.”

I am surfacing.  I apologize for my silence and lack of posting.  For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been coming to terms with the fact that my husband is going to continue to be hospitalized at least until mid-March with osteomyelitis, a bone infection.  So, I’ve been adapting to life with three children while one parent is unavailable.  It’s difficult, to say the least.  I do hope, though, to blog on a regular basis.  This site is a lifeline for me, and I am grateful for each of you who take the time to visit and post a comment!

February 11th marked the 150th anniversary of the death of Elizabeth Siddal.  I received several lovely emails and invitations to attend the commemorative service at Highgate Cemetery and I’m heartbroken that I could not attend.  However, there are some excellent  posts marking the day.  If I’ve missed yours, please let me know!

My dear friend Kirsty Stonell Walker outdid herself, not only visiting the grave of Lizzie Siddal, but also tracking down the grave of Pre-Raphaelite model Alexa Wilding.  Read her post about it, A Tale of Two Stunners.

Verity Holloway shares her thoughts on the death of Elizabeth Siddal.  “As is often the case with historical women, Lizzie Siddal has always been in danger of being overwhelmed by her own image.”

Author Robert Parry wrote a moving post about the anniversary. “There will never be a photo of an elderly Elizabeth Siddal discovered in a hidden attic.”

Valerie Meachum is a kindred spirit, we share a love and respect for Lizzie.  I found her post especially poignant and I think it’s wonderful that she took the title from one of Lizzie’s own poems:  And this is only earth, my dear.

Finally, what a perfect way to spend the day:  SomniumDantis was present at the Highgate memorial and then visited Lizzie as Ophelia by Millais.  Beautiful.

Thank you to my friend John R. Green who has given me permission to share his photos of the service at Highgate:

Lizzie died in the early hours of 11 February, having taken an excessive dose of laudanum the night before when going to bed. The inquest verdict was accidental death, but ever since rumours have persisted that she intended to die. She was suffering from severe post-natal depression following the stillbirth of her daughter the year before, and friends reported that she was in a highly disturbed state of mind. Rossetti did not like to leave her alone at home in the daytime [so why leave her alone in the evening?]

On the morning of the funeral 17 February 1862, he placed in the open coffin the manuscript of poems he had been preparing for publication, which was then buried with Lizzie at Highgate. In 1869, notoriously, he arranged for the coffin to be exhumed and the poems retrieved; with others they wre published the following year.

He declared:
‘The truth is that no one so much as herself would have approved of my doing this. Art was the only thing for which she felt very seriously. Had it been possible to her, I should have found the book on my pillow the night she was buried; and could she have opened the grave, no other hand would have been needed.’

This is a unique and historic occasion as it is in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Lizzie Siddal’s death: she died on February 11th 1862 and was buried at Highgate Cemetery six days later.

Lizzie Siddal was a nineteenth-century phenomenon: a working-class girl whose beauty made her the Pre-Raphaelite movement’s most celebrated, iconic face. Dante Rossetti, founder and leading light of the movement, painted and drew her obsessively a thousand times. She soon became a poet and artist in her own right.

However, as his lover and finally his wife, Lizzie’s relationship with Rossetti was blighted by his infidelities and neglect. In despair, Lizzie resorted to laudanum to numb her senses. In 1862 she took an overdose and left a suicide note.

Lucinda’s illustrated and vivid account of Lizzie’s meteoric but brief career and her tortured relationship breathes new life into the images of Lizzie frozen in time in galleries around the world.

Doors open at 6 pm for refreshments. The talk commences at 6.30 and will last around an hour.

Booking: is in advance by email only at events@highgate-cemetery.org.

Tickets: cost £10 each (£8 for students) including refreshments and nibbles.

Space is limited so early booking is advised.

Venue: in our Grade I listed Chapel which has just been beautifully refurbished.

At the beginning of October, I decided to redesign LizzieSiddal.com.  Some people have told me that they like to print out certain pages or are reading with mobile devices.  I think the new layout is more useful for both of those purposes.  Also, I began to ponder the navigation for the site.  It seems that using ‘tags’ instead of ‘categories’ is a more efficient way to categorize posts and I think it creates a better browsing experience.  Finally, I felt that the blogroll in the sidebar had grown long and unwieldy.  So, I’ve removed it and created a Links page.  This gives me the opportunity to actually tell you something about each link instead of having a long list for you to wade through.

At Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood we are continuing the Pre-Raphaelite Reading Project with Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love.

I’d like to add that I’ve received a few emails recently asking why Rossetti’s painting Ecce Ancilla Domini doesn’t appear on this site.   I do understand that they are obviously from viewers of Desperate Romantics, so please let me set the record straight:

Ecce Ancilla Domini was painted by Rossetti before he met Elizabeth Siddal.  She is not the model.  Dante Gabriel Rossetti used his sister, poet Christina Rossetti, as the model for Mary.  His brother William Michael Rossetti served as the angel Gabriel.

Desperate Romantics was a fun production to watch and I hate to disappoint any visitors to this site who are great fans of it, but I have to disclose that I found many of the changes they made appalling.  There.  I said it.

We all know the Arthurian tales, they are embedded in our culture.  Every few years it seems as if Hollywood gives us a slick new version of Camelot.  Authors return to the legends for inspiration.  Musicians lyrically recant their interpretations of the saga.  It goes on and on.

So, while the stories of King Arthur and his knights are familiar, I propose that we revisit them, study them, and ponder the works that they inspired.  Try to see them with new eyes, from a different perspective.  The Pre-Raphaelites were living on the dawn of a new era, the Industrial Revolution.  They were surrounded by modern advances and yet they hearkened back to the age of chivalry and yearned for the medieval.  Let’s immerse ourselves in La Morte d’Arthur and discuss the Pre-Raphaelite works that stem from it.  Many of those works are already on Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood  in previous posts, but this will give me a chance to perhaps add new depth and understanding through my reading project.

Pre-Raphaelite Inspired Reading:  Sidonia the Sorceress

Sidonia by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones

I’d also like to mention two wonderful Pre-Raphaelite blogs.
The Kissed Mouth is written by Kirsty Walker, who I deeply respect and admire. Kirsty is the author of the first full length biography of Pre-Raphaelite model Fanny Cornforth, which she is currently revising. Her new blog, The Kissed Mouth, explores her interest in Cornforth and Pre-Raphaelite art. fannycornforth.blogspot.com

The second blog is The Awakening Conscience: musings on Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood by Tony Riches.   It’s an enjoyable, well-written blog and I look forward to reading more of it!

If you’re lucky enough to be in the Birmingham area in July, Lucinda Hawksley will be giving a talk! The author of  Lizzie Siddal, the Tragedy of a Pre-Raphaelite Supermodel will be speaking the Waterhall at 2pm on Sunday 3rd July.  More information can be found here.

Lucinda also has a new book out:  50 British Artists You Should Know.  I love it that Ophelia graces part of the cover!

A new Download area has also been added, which allows you to find the Elizabeth Siddal episode of The Sexton’s Tales podcast and the PDF files of the William Morris and Rossetti/Siddal books from the Little Journeys series.  I still need to add more from the Little Journeys series and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself that I’ve procrastinated for so long!  I hope to get to that this week.

I’m trying out a new plugin that allows you to magnify images.  Hover over the image below:

While I’m very busy cleaning things up around here, don’t forget you can follow me on Twitter, visit my other blog Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, and connect with LizzieSiddal.com on Facebook!