Elizabeth Rossetti, née Siddal (1829-1862)

Lizzie Siddal was introduced to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1850 when she sat to Walter Deverell, Holman Hunt and Millais. She studied informally with Rossetti, who encouraged and greatly influenced her earnest, naive style. Her work was first seen in public when she showed literary subjects and a self-portrait at the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition held in Russell Place in the summer of 1857. Her work exemplifies the Pre-Raphaelite taste for outline drawing and literary subjects, seen in the work of Rossetti, Hunt and Millais, while offering a female perspective.