To any avid Pre-Raphaelite lover, Elizabeth Siddal is a familiar face among the movement’s ethereal beauties. Her striking features first caught the attention of artist Walter Deverell in 1949, when she was twenty years old and working as a milliner (hat maker) in London. She quickly became a popular muse among the Pre-Raphaelite artists, posing for Millais’s famous painting Ophelia in 1852. Little did she know prophetic her role as the doomed heroine would be. Posing in a bath of water, Siddal was too shy to draw attention to the fact that the candles warming the water had burnt out, and as a result caught a dreadful case of Pneumonia.
By this time, Rossetti was using her as a primary muse, almost to the exclusion of all other models. Rossetti’s fascination with her easily bordered on an obsession- the artist did thousands of sketches and drawings of her, aside from the many well-known paintings. Although Elizabeth Siddal was in her own right an artist and poet, her career and budding relationship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti was tainted by her equally blossoming consumption of Laudanum. She and Rossetti had a somewhat informal engagement of over a decade, fraught by Rossetti’s constant affairs with his artistic subjects such as Fanny Cornforth and Annie Miller. Finally, in 1960, Elizabeth Siddal became so ill (informally from her excessive drug use) that it was believed she was on her deathbed. Rossetti, filled with a sudden rush of love for his life-long artistic inspiration and yes, with guilt at his own poor treatment of her, married her on the spot.
That year, Rossetti painted Regina Cordium, a marriage portrait of his new bride. The painting itself is luxurious, adorned with gold leaf lattice-work depicting crosses and hearts. Elizabeth Siddal wears a necklace of coral beads with a heart pendant. However, a closer examination reveals clues to the true context of the portrait – of Elizabeth’s illness and their deteriorated relationship. Her skin has a green hue, and the flower she holds has a strange symbolic meaning. The pansy was understood in Victorian times to be a symbol of ‘Fond Remembrance’ – a strange association for a marriage portrait, far more fitting for a funerary moment perhaps. Elizabeth Siddal overdosed on Laudanum in 1962, not long after Regina Cordium was painted.
Avoid giving a sinister bouquet this Valentine’s Day – avoid the following flowers:
Anemone - Forsaken
Begonia - Beware
Yellow carnation - Disappointment, rejection
Yellow Hyacinth – Jealousy
Rose, yellow Jealousy, decrease of love
Rather impress your beloved with one of these choices:
Tulip, red - Declaration of love
Sunflower – Adoration
Rose, red - Love, I love you, desire
Aloe - Healing, protection, affection