Lizzie Siddal

by Lucinda Hawksley

  The Ruskin vs. Ruskin court case, which came to an end in July 1854, was one of the most exciting scandals to hit London that year, not least because it involved so moral a figure as John Ruskin. As a wronged husband, Ruskin could easily have contested the case and instead sued Effie for adultery with Millais. Had he done so, the scandal would have been far greater and Effie would, no doubt, have come off worst in the contemporary legal climate. But Ruskin chose to maintain a dignified silence and allowed his “impotence” to be cited.

  In 1854, the world was in an unstable state. Britain had entered the Crimean War and the papers were filled daily with fresh miseries from the battlefields. The war was one of the first to inspire dedicated war journalists and war artists, and the reportage was of a calibre – and of such detail – that the British public had not previously experienced. The realities of war were, for the first time, brought directly into every literate home.55 In such an atmosphere, the Ruskin–Millais scandal provided the public with some light and titillating relief. It was picked over with relish in bawdy pubs and respectable gentlemen’s clubs all over the British Isles. Ruskin retreated into his work and attempted to rise above it. When the nightmare was over for all three of the antagonists, Effie and Ruskin were no longer husband and wife and almost exactly a year later she became Effie Millais. It was to be a happy marriage, entirely different from her life with Ruskin. The Millaises had eight children and this time around Effie needed to plead with her husband to leave her alone occasionally.

  Ruskin, despite the acute public humiliation, was remarkably magnanimous about the affair. In time he even forgave Millais and contact was resumed, albeit as acquaintances rather than friends. Ruskin could never trust Millais again and Millais could no longer hold Ruskin in awe – he knew far too much about him as a man to allow him to remain an idol. For Ruskin, Rossetti was not only a unique and interesting addition to his elite circle, he also filled the gap left by Millais. In 1854 Rossetti had not yet achieved the fame, praise and money which he was later to attain and which was, at this early date, already being granted to Millais. As such, Rossetti was in greater need of Ruskin’s guidance and assistance than Millais had been. He was also in awe of the critic and, by this genuine adulation, was able to bolster the fragile ego which had taken such a battering in recent months. Rossetti was keen to learn and eager to impress, and Ruskin no longer had a wife to be tempted away – which was fortunate, as Rossetti had far fewer scruples than Millais.

  Throughout 1854, with Lizzie in continually poor health, Rossetti would often need to leave his work and rush to her bedside and, through his correspondence with Rossetti, Ruskin came to know about and to gain yet more interest in this ethereal, sickly creature who had so fascinated his eccentric disciple. He began sending messages to Lizzie, who had not yet met him, and turning to his all-knowing mother for advice to dispense to the invalid.

  Realizing that Rossetti was not earning anything like enough money from his painting, and recognizing his extremely rare talent, Ruskin persuaded him to apply for a teaching position at the Working Men’s College in Camden. The college opened in October 1854, with Ruskin as one of the teachers. Rossetti was accepted and started his classes in January 1855. He taught a three-hour lesson every Monday night, which proved such a success that he remained attached to the college for several years. Meanwhile, his private “pupil” was becoming more confident in her artistic and poetic abilities. She was now sketching or writing habitually and working on subjects that were likely to prove commercially viable. Rossetti was anxious to improve her awareness of all things artistic. He took her to galleries and private exhibitions, including the second annual exhibition of the Photographic Society in January 1855. Photography was still a new art and something of a phenomenon at this date. There was no exhibition centre dedicated to photography, so the exhibition was held at the rooms usually used by the Society of Watercolour Painters.

  In March 1855, Rossetti showed Lizzie’s paintings and sketches to Ruskin for the first time. The latter was so impressed that he offered instantly to buy them all. In a single day, through no exertions of her own, Lizzie’s paintings earned her more than her entire annual wage at the hat shop. Rossetti – who always retained the altruistic attribute of being genuinely happy about his friends’ successes, even if they appeared to overshadow his own – wrote glowingly to William Allingham on March 17:

  About a week ago, Ruskin saw and bought on the spot every scrap of designs hitherto produced by Miss Siddal. He declared that they were far better than mine, or almost anyone’s, and seemed quite wild with delight at getting them. He asked me to name a price for them, after asking and learning that they were for sale; and I, of course, considering the immense advantage of their getting them into his hands, named a very low price, £25, which he declared to be too low even for a low price, and increased to £30. He is going to have them splendidly mounted and bound together in gold, and no doubt this will be a real opening for her, as it is already a great assistance and encouragement. He has since written her a letter which I enclose, and which as you see promises further usefulness.

  Rossetti made all the decisions with Ruskin regarding Lizzie. Although he was reluctant to marry her, he was behaving like her husband. Lizzie’s works had nothing of the grandeur of Rossetti’s or Millais’s work, but they were clever and showed great promise. For a girl who had been brought up with no formal artistic training, and had indeed been using paints for only a couple of years, they seemed portentous of great hidden talent that needed only careful nurturing to blossom. Lizzie’s paintings and sketches are naïve in style; some seem awkward and confused, yet in others the lines flow idyllically across the page. Her style is erratic, sometimes drawn with clarity, at other times sketchy and rough – indicative of the amount of laudanum she had taken before starting. If she had not been Rossetti’s lover, it is unlikely Lizzie would have had any chance of being noticed by the established art world. As a female artist, even one of brilliance, it was a Herculean task to infiltrate that patriarchal sphere – but the backing of a man such as John Ruskin was the stepping stone she needed to help bring her to the forefront and to be taken seriously as an artist. It is apparent from veiled comments made by other Pre-Raphaelites, including Holman Hunt and Madox Brown, that they considered her work unworthy of such great attention, but Rossetti and Ruskin were convinced; and it was Ruskin’s opinion that really mattered.

  Her style can be seen as being ahead of its time, looking forward to the days of Bonnard and Matisse. Perhaps Ruskin was an artistic visionary, recognizing that this more naïve style would, in just a very few decades, be perceived as a vitally important step towards artistic modernity. Whatever his subconscious feelings or generous philanthropic reasons may have been when he made the purchase, Ruskin was genuinely interested in the paintings on their own merit and they increased his desire to meet the artist.

  The impact of Ruskin’s intervention was immediate: within days of the critic first glimpsing her paintings, Lizzie was asked by Moxon, the publisher of Tennyson’s latest edition of poetry, for which Rossetti was designing some of the illustrations, if she could provide some illustrations as well. It was a dream come true (although Lizzie’s illustrations did not appear in the final published volume).Yet, sadly, Lizzie was to discover that even the fulfilment of dreams could not banish depression or cure a destructive addiction.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Meeting the Ruskins and the Rossettis

  John Ruskin finally met the woman by whom he was so deeply intrigued on April 11, 1855. Ruskin lived with his ageing parents in a grand house in Dulwich, south-east London, and Rossetti and Lizzie were invited to visit. Two days later, Rossetti sent an exuberant letter to Ford Madox Brown in which he related how thrilled the Ruskins had been with Lizzie, that Ruskin himself had described her as “a noble, glorious creature” and Ruskin’s father had commented “that by her look and manner she might have been born a countess”. He continued in the letter, “His mo
ther, who he tells me has much medical knowledge, was closeted with her awhile, and says she thinks her illness principally weakness, but needing the very greatest care. God send it may be only this; and at any rate the cure will now I hope be possible … [Mrs Ruskin] has sent her a quantity of ivory-dust to be made into jelly, which it seems is an excellent thing.”

  For the forbidding Mrs Ruskin to take such an interest in a woman of the lower classes, and one who possibly possessed dubious morals, by Mrs Ruskin’s standards, is high testament to Lizzie’s ability to charm people. Ivory-dust – the jelly made from which was believed to help build up the body and to build up strength – was very expensive and precious, as it was difficult to obtain. The choice of it as a gift to a girl she had met only once was particularly generous and thoughtful, especially as Lizzie could not possibly have afforded to buy it for herself. Although William Rossetti implies in his memoirs that Lizzie was sullen and untrustworthy, she was perceived by many other people to be captivating. The Ruskins proved no exception. Almost at once John Ruskin took the liberty of bestowing upon her a nickname, a strange thing for a man who was not her lover to do in an age when it took a strong acquaintance for a man to address a woman even by her given name (accepted practice was for men and women to address one another as “Mr” or “Miss” and their surname). Ruskin’s chosen nickname for Lizzie was “Ida”, after the heroine of Tennyson’s poem “The Princess”.

  In the autumn of 1855, when Lizzie was not only suffering from her usual unexplained maladies but also from agonizing toothache, Ruskin sent her a volume of Wordsworth’s poetry to take her mind off the pain. He was able to treat her as an intellectual equal – something Rossetti’s family were never able to do.

  Lizzie may have been tall and sometimes haughty looking, but there was also something about her that was painfully vulnerable, inspiring feelings of protection in many of those who met her. It was not only men who felt this way, many women, including Georgiana Burne-Jones, Emma Madox Brown, Anna Mary Howitt, Bessie Parkes and Barbara Leigh Smith, went to great lengths to help or protect her. Her lover’s family may have shunned her, but other people were fascinated by her.

  Mrs Ruskin was not the only one of the family to want to cure Lizzie’s frail health. John Ruskin was equally concerned about her. He invited her to stay with him and his parents, offering her the run of the pleasant house and its garden, set in one of London’s greenest areas. He told her she could keep to herself and need not be disturbed by them if she so wished. He tried to persuade her that the clean air would make a healthy change from Blackfriars or Weymouth Street. It was when Lizzie declined this offer – she knew she could not behave as she would wish in the Ruskins’ well-ordered and eminently respectable home – that Ruskin suggested she go instead to stay in Oxford and be seen by Dr Acland.

  Ruskin’s patronage began changing Lizzie’s life at once. As soon as the annual sum of her allowance had been agreed, Rossetti wrote to Madox Brown asking him if he could take Lizzie shopping to buy her own paints, brushes and other accoutrements of their craft. Until then, Lizzie had used Rossetti’s painting tools, but at last she was able to purchase her very own. On April 14, 1855, Madox Brown accompanied an excited Lizzie to the premises of “sundry colourmen”, where she chose her palette, brushes and colours. Rossetti was unable to take her because he was in debt to almost every art supplies shop in London and dared not show his face in any of them. In the afternoon, Madox Brown accompanied an increasingly nervous Lizzie to the Rossetti family home in Albany Street, where she was to meet Frances and Maria Rossetti for the very first time.

  Almost immediately after experiencing the rapt way in which the Ruskins received Lizzie, Rossetti had decided, at last, to introduce her to his own mother. On April 13, he had sent a letter to Madox Brown, asking “Bruno” and Emma to accompany him and Lizzie to his mother’s tea party after the morning’s shopping trip. The Madox Browns were intended to be a buffer, to prevent any ugly scenes. Ford was a favourite with Frances Rossetti, although it is doubtful she felt so kindly towards Emma, of whose illegitimate baby she was possibly aware. In the event, Emma was unable to attend, her presence regretted by Lizzie who felt keenly the absence of a friend able to empathize with the difficulty of her situation.

  Rossetti felt confident about arranging the party now that Lizzie was not only approved of by the Ruskins but was soon to become a woman of private means. In a couple of weeks she would be the possessor of £150 a year – over six times the amount she had been earning as a milliner’s assistant. Since Ruskin had first made the offer, Lizzie had become elevated, in Rossetti’s wishful opinion, much nearer to his own social rank; and it was not just because of the money, but because she had been accepted by the Ruskins, a family of higher social standing than his own. Rossetti was hopeful that these things in combination would lead his mother to approve of Lizzie. They did not.

  The Ruskins may have embraced Lizzie wholeheartedly, but they did not have to suffer the possibility of her becoming their daughter-in-law. In an ideal world, Mrs Rossetti would have preferred her eldest son to marry a well-born girl of Italian extraction or an English girl of the same class or above. She would also have wished for him to bring home a girl who was not so strangely haughty that she made one feel awkward in one’s own drawing room. Lizzie was, of course, acutely aware that Rossetti had not wanted to introduce her to his mother before, and equally painfully aware that the Rossettis knew for how long she had been a part of Dante’s life without being deemed suitable for an introduction. Added to this, Lizzie had already met the icy Christina, and neither girl had been particularly friendly to the other. Maria, even more sternly religious, as well as being Dante’s only elder sibling, was yet more frightening. None of the Rossetti women approved of the hold this ethereal, redheaded creature had over their dear brother and son. To Frances, Maria and Christina, all devout and prejudiced in their religious beliefs, Lizzie was an affront.

  The much-anticipated tea party bore no resemblance at all to the successful, laudatory day Dante and his “dove” had spent in the Ruskins’ peaceful Dulwich garden. The atmosphere at Albany Street was frigid with awkwardness as the tea party sat almost in silence. In amongst the china tea cups, the silver and the seed cake, the Rossetti women said barely a word and Lizzie was cowed into silence by their obvious hostility. Dante and Ford attempted to keep the conversation flowing, but it was a thankless task. All participants were greatly relieved when it was time for the party to come to a polite end and for Dante to walk Lizzie home. Ford Madox Brown recorded in his diary that he stayed the night with the Rossettis, and while Dante was out sat up until late talking to the rest of the family. His attempts to intercede on behalf of Lizzie (of whom he was very fond) were listened to politely, but he was unable to persuade the Rossetti women to see the good in Lizzie, as he and Emma did. Dante’s “dove” was never to be entirely accepted or loved by his family, but after this disastrous tea party a distinct shift necessarily took place. Although the remaining Rossettis had, until then, made every attempt to pretend she did not exist, Lizzie had just become a real part of Dante’s life and her presence could no longer be ignored.

  While Dante’s family were desperate to prevent him from marrying Miss Sid, Ruskin was equally determined that his new friend should do exactly that. Within two weeks of becoming her patron, he was writing to Rossetti to enquire coyly if he had any “plans or wishes respecting Miss S. which you are prevented from carrying out by want of a certain income, and if so what certain income would enable you to carry them out”. Marriage may not have worked out happily for Ruskin, but he was sharp enough to see that for Lizzie it was the only way forward. She had been more or less living at Rossetti’s rooms – his neighbours and landlady all assumed she was his mistress, there was no pretence at being his “pupil” in Chatham Place. Ruskin could see with clarity the precarious position in which Lizzie found herself. Rossetti could leave her at any time and, as things stood, she would be left with nothing
except a tarnished reputation that would preclude the possibility of marriage to any other man. A week after his first letter, Ruskin wrote to Rossetti again, this time stating far more bluntly that he should marry Lizzie. Rossetti chose to ignore it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Seeking a Cure

  Ruskin was Lizzie’s new saviour and she began their working relationship by placing faith in his instructions for her health, agreeing to meet and be treated by Dr Henry Wentworth Acland.56 She and Lydia set out from London on the morning of May 21, 1855, taking the train to Oxford. There they stayed at a lodging house chosen by the doctor. The Aclands had offered to have the sisters to stay in their home, but Lizzie preferred to be independent.

  Rossetti was dreading her leaving him and a couple of days before she left he wrote to Acland, entreating him to send word to London as soon as he had made his diagnosis. Rossetti wrote again as soon as he had seen Lizzie onto the train, reiterating his request and obviously waiting for an excuse to rush down to Oxford and join her. He did not choose to go with Lizzie to Oxford for the duration of her visit because he knew that the carefully chosen landlady of the lodgings the Aclands had deemed suitable to house Ruskin’s prodigy would not be as understanding as Mrs Elphick in Hastings.

  In Oxford, Lizzie was treated as a welcome friend of the Acland family and as a minor celebrity, thanks to her association with Ruskin. He had led his acquaintances to believe she was nothing short of a genius and the Aclands dutifully escorted Lizzie and Lydia to parties and other events and introduced them to their social circle. Lizzie was honoured to be escorted around the Bodleian Library, by an ancient fellow of the university, where she was shown rare manuscripts. She was also invited to see an original painting by Albrecht Dürer. The painting was of a black beetle and – far less to her liking – the owner went scuttling enthusiastically down to the cellar in order to bring up a black beetle so Lizzie could compare it to the Dürer and discover just how accurate the great master had been.