New Release: Beyond Ophelia: The True Legacy of Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti

February 21 2025

Image of New Release: Beyond Ophelia: The True Legacy of Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti

Picture: Unicorn

Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:

A new book on the artist and muse Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti (more widely called Elizabeth Siddal) was published this week. The new volume is penned by Glenda Youde of the University of York.

According to the blurb:

Better known as ‘Lizzie Siddal’, the model who posed for John Everett Millais’s painting Ophelia, Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti is now finally recognised as a Pre-Raphaelite artist in her own right, working alongside her male colleagues on equal terms. Elizabeth’s designs were truly original, the creation of her own imagination. They embodied the essence of Pre-Raphaelitism that her husband Gabriel and other members of the circle were striving to achieve. The male members of the group shamelessly copied the ideas from Elizabeth’s small sketches to create their own large masterpieces which have since become the epitome of Pre-Raphaelite art. The exclusion of women from the narrative has had a major impact in creating the perception of the Pre-Raphaelites as a predominantly male artistic movement; in Beyond Ophelia Dr Glenda Youde shows Elizabeth not as a pathetic drowning figure, but as the initiator of a directional change in the visual development of Pre-Raphaelite art. Featuring a unique collection of photographs of Elizabeth’s work commissioned by her husband after her death, this book highlights the critical importance of her role within the Pre-Raphaelite circle, and one which ultimately led to the evolution of the Aesthetic Movement.

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