My first Magazine Gossip: Scandals and Relationships of Authors | Page 24

Beata Beatrix painted by Dante
Love&Rejection 
'ROSETTI
SIBLINGS'
BY NURUL KHALIDA
Awww so sweet! When Gabriel
was in love with Elizabeth “Lizzie”
Siddal, he painted her as Beatrice,
the beautiful and unattainable
woman loved by the medieval poet
Dante Alighieri (after whom
Rossetti was named). When
Rossetti began an affair with Jane
Morris, wife of his friend William
Morris, he attempted to assuage
his guilt by convincing himself
William was a cruel husband who
kept Jane imprisoned (the reality
was very different). This resulted in
paintings such as Proserpine
(1874) and La Pia de Tolomei
(1868-1880) – telling stories of
women in impossible situations.
Rossetti and Lizzie Siddal were in
a relationship for ten years before
they finally married. As the years
grew, so did Lizzie’s laudanum
addiction, and references to the
habit that would kill her become
apparent in Rossetti’s paintings –
look at The Wedding of St George
and Princess Sabra (1857). This is
the one painting in which Lizzie, as
the Turkish princess, is depicted
with dark hair, instead of her own
stunning red locks. Look closely
and you will see a vial in her hand,
indicative of the laudanum Lizzie
kept with her at all times. In the
posthumous painting Beata Beatrix
(c.1864-1870), a dove brings the
ecstatic Beatrice / Lizzie a papery
fine opium poppy, dropping it into
her open palms.