![]() Rossetti was prostrated by guilt and grief. A stillborn daughter accelerated her decline and in 1862 she died from a laudanum overdose, perhaps intentionally. She was afflicted with depression, addicted to laudanum and so physically weak that she had to be carried to the church for the wedding. He painted and drew her obsessively but he also feared his parents’ disapproval and refused to introduce Lizzie to them. That sort of veneration is inherently fragile and although the pair married in 1860 their liaison was far from tranquil. There was a degree of transmutation in the relationship, too: at times Lizzie was more than flesh and blood, personifying his idea of perfect womanhood that justified a love that transgressed social station. By 1852 Siddal had become Rossetti’s pupil, lover and primary model and he was possessive enough to stop her sitting for other painters in the Pre-Raphaelite circle. ![]() He was from a highly cultured Anglo-Italian family – his father was a Dante scholar, one of his mother’s brothers was John William Polidori, Lord Byron’s doctor and author of the first vampire story. ![]() She was the daughter of a cutlery maker and had artistic aspirations. In 1849 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the 21-year-old poet-artist and founder member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, met a milliner’s assistant named Elizabeth Siddal. ![]()
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