Elizabeth Siddal Biography
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- Born July 25, 1829
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall (25 July 1829 – 11 February 1862), better known as Elizabeth Siddal,[a] was an English artist, poet, and artists' model. Significant collections of her artworks can be found at Wightwick Manor and the Ashmolean. Siddal was painted and drawn extensively by artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, including Walter Deverell, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais (including his notable 1852 painting Ophelia), and especially by her husband, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall, named after her mother, was born on 25 July 1829, at the family's home at 7 Charles Street, Hatton Garden. Her parents were Charles Crooke Siddall, and Elizabeth Eleanor Evans, from a family of English and Welsh descent. She had two older siblings, Ann and Charles Robert. At the time of her birth, her father had a cutlery-making business.
About 1831, the Siddalls moved to the less affluent borough of Southwark, in south London. The rest of Siddal's siblings were born in Southwark; Lydia, to whom she was particularly close; Mary, Clara, James and Henry. Siddal "received an ordinary education, conformable to her condition in life" and first "read Tennyson by finding one or two poems of his on a piece of paper" that had been wrapped around some butter. This engendered a love of poetry while young and inspired her to write her own.
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