The Lady of Shalott

Elizabeth Siddal’s life was marked by her dual role as both muse and artist. Despite her integral role in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood as a model, she also pursued a career as an artist in her own right. Tennyson’s poem held deep personal resonance for Siddal, who, like the Lady, was confined by societal and artistic expectations. Working within the Pre-Raphaelite circle, Siddal strove to express her own voice through this imagery, finding common ground with Tennyson’s tragic heroines who often suffer in silence. The drawing’s delicate linework and sensitive portrayal of the Lady reflect Siddal’s poetic sensibility and mirror her own struggles with illness, love, and artistic expression.

In The Lady of Shalott, also from around 1855, Elizabeth Siddal presents her interpretation of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s famous poem. The Lady of Shalott, a tragic figure cursed to remain in her tower, symbolizes themes of isolation, unrequited love, and the romantic ideal of the woman as a doomed figure. Siddal’s drawing, rendered in pen and ink, captures the emotional weight of the story, focusing on the Lady’s moment of awakening as she glimpses Sir Lancelot in a mirror, knowing that doing so will seal her fate. The work demonstrates Siddal’s skill in conveying emotion through her figures’ expressions and gestures, evoking empathy and sorrow for the Lady’s plight.