Elizabeth Siddal

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date: c. 1855

Materials: Pencil 

Used as a study for the figure of Rachel in a watercolour of 1855, this is one of the dozens of beautiful, intimate portrait drawings of Lizzie Siddal made by Rossetti at the height of their relationship in 1854-5. In his diary, Ford Madox Brown recorded finding Rossetti drawings "one after another, each one a fresh charm, each one stamped with immortality".  

Almost a year later, Brown was shown "a drawer full . . . God knows how many, but not bad work I should say for the six years he has known her. It is like a monomania with him. Many of them are matchless in beauty however & one day will be worth large sums".