It was well known within their circle of friends that Lizzie and Gabriel referred to each other by the pet name of Guggums. Ford Madox Brown mentioned this curious nickname and Rossetti’s obsessive drawing of his beloved Guggums.
“Called on Dante Rossetti. Saw Miss Siddal, looking thinner and more deathlike and more beautiful and more ragged than ever; a real artist, a woman without parallel for many a long year. Gabriel as usual diffuse and inconsequent in his work. Drawing wonderful and lovely Guggums one after another, each one a fresh charm, each one stamped with immortality, and his picture never advancing.”
In another entry, Ford Madox Brown said that Rossetti showed him “a drawer full of ‘Guggums’, God knows how many, but not bad work, I should say, for the six years he had known her; it is like a monomania with him. Many of them are matchless in beauty, however, and one day will be worth large sums.”
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