Exploring the class and sexuality of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood models Lizzie Siddal and Annie Miller
Annie Miller was a barmaid before she became Helen of Troy. Elizabeth Siddal would be immortalized as Beatrice, the great love of poet Dante Alighieri’s life. She was spotted when working at a hat shop. Women who straddled the line between impoverished and lower-middle class were elevated to mythological status by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Their models both embodied the beauty ideals of the artists while also setting these standards with their unruly clouds of hair and aquiline noses. However, being held to the expectations of fictional queens and goddesses were very real women whose lives could not be confined by these archetypes. In their roles as models, these women took on work that was viewed as akin to prostitution by the society in which they lived. While being associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood did hold a certain amount of status that may have appealed, their models and muses had to weigh the benefits against the impact their work would have on their lives. The artists were aware of this, and often alluded to the social status of their models in their work, fetishizing their poverty or sexuality that relegated them to the outskirts of respectable society. The Fallen Woman is a recurring subject of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, as they eagerly sexualize and simultaneously demoralize the women they made goddesses of. The open sexuality and lower class backgrounds of these women made for inspiring models, yet the artists sought to diminish these qualities when they decided to make their muses their wives. Through the examination of Elizabeth Siddal and Annie Miller, a recurring pattern appears: exploit the image of these fallen women for art, and clean them up so that they can be respectable enough to become wives. Though the Brotherhood considered themselves bohemians untouched by the rigid expectations of Victorian morality, they expected the women in their circle to fulfill the role of muse wholly or find the affections and attention of their lovers quickly turn elsewhere. These women were aware of this, and found ways to both fulfill these expectations and dismantle them. But what of their failed muses- the women who failed to “graduate” from mistress to wife? Annie Miller is frequently absent from the study of the so-called Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood because she did not marry her artist, her life after her encounter with the Brotherhood reduced to a footnote. However, Annie and other unmarried muses had just as much of a profound impact on the Victorian art world, and their personal lives attest to the liminal space in which they were forced to live in as artist’s models- condemned for their modelling, shamed for having affairs with them, seen as dependent on men if they eventually married them- so what then of the women who left the “sisterhood”? Annie Miller defied the path both the brotherhood and Victorian society expecting her to willingly follow, and in doing so revealed the tense hypocrisies faced by the Pre-Raphaelite’s stunners. By contrasting her reaction and responses to the Brotherhood’s expectations with that of Lizzie Siddal, the ways in which class influenced both women’s role as muse and mistress are divulged. The depiction of wife versus mistress in Pre-Raphaelite art also alludes to the Brotherhood’s willingness to exploit the sexuality of their lovers from lower-class backgrounds.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood had set out to be subversive. Initially referring to themselves as a brethren rather than a brotherhood, artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Frederic George Stephens, William Michael Rossetti, James Collinson, and Thomas Woolner created the group with a mission to create art against the standards set by the Royal Academy. These young artists believed that the Academy valued only stuffy and pretentious realism paintings, a standard that had been set by Raphael. These men, many still students at the Academy they so harshly criticized, believed that “the principles on which art has been taught for … three hundred years back are essentially wrong”. They craved a return to epic genre paintings featuring medieval and mythological subjects. While not members at the formation of this brotherhood, William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones would later become key figures.
Despite their willingness to subvert the expectations of Victorian society, the artists were very much influenced by the literature and art of their time. While much of their early work does reflect their desire for a return to classic subjects and excessive detail, they turned their attention to contemporary issues in their later paintings. Rossetti’s unfinished painting Found and Hunt’s The Awakening Conscious have both been the subject of much scholarly attention surrounding the portrayal of the fallen woman in their art. They both highlight Victorian attitudes towards prostitution and promiscuity, and reveal hypocrisies as the subjects of these shameful women were their own mistresses. However, this paper seeks to begin to take the narrative away from these artists and place it back in the hands of their models, starting with Annie Miller, whose background was considerably lower than that of the women the Brotherhood would go on to marry. Despite their self-proclaimed bohemian outlooks on life, there was a select type of women they deemed fit to marry: lower class enough to fit the fallen woman archetype and therefore could be saved, yet respectable enough to marry. For reasons this paper will explore, Annie did not meet this narrow criteria set by the Brotherhood.
While the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood has been the subject of many scholarly articles, books, and museum exhibitions since the beginning of their success, the women in their circle have until recently largely been ignored or relegated to the empty status of muse with no attention to their own artistic contributions. In the 1980’s feminist historians reclaimed Elizabeth “Lizzie” Siddal as an artistic icon, rebranding her from the tragic lovesick laudunum addict that had been her role in previous histories. Jan Marsh has been at the forefront of researching what she has dubbed the Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood, bringing light to the lives of Elizabeth, Jane, and Georgiana Burne-Jones especially in her 1985 book. However, as one particularly scathing reviewer of her book points out, Annie Miller and Fanny Cornforth- another model from a lower-class background- are largely absent from this book. Their lives apparently disproved Marsh’s theory that the women in the Pre-Raphaelite’s circle were “interesting in their own right”. Marsh and other scholars have gone on to further research these two women and prove that they were in fact fascinating women, but the initial stigma surrounding Miller and Cornforth remains: who are they without the Brotherhood? The feminist reclamation of Lizzie Siddal in the 1980’s has since expanded in both the scholarly and public realm to encompass nearly all of the women involved in the Pre-Raphaelite circle. From 2019-2020, the National Portrait Gallery held an exhibit entitled “Pre-Raphaelite Sisters” which promised to examine “overlooked contributions” by twelve women. Kirsty Stonell Walker’s 2018 book “Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang: Fifty Makers, Shakers and Heartbreakers from the Victorian Era” is also emblematic of this feminist trend. However, it relabels these women as “revolutionary” yet continues to determine their relevance due to their proximity to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Many of these muses never met each other, and their so-called shared sisterhood is one defined by their relationships to the same men.
At the forefront of this sisterhood has been Lizzie Siddal. Due to her work as artist and poet her work has been featured alongside Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Millais, and Morris at recent exhibits of Pre-Raphaelite work, such as a 2015-2016 show at the National Gallery of Canada. While her talent has now been recognized, it was not her skill with pencil and brush that initially drew the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to her. She was scouted for her striking good looks while employed in a millinery shop, and quickly became involved with the Pre-Raphaelite circle after modelling for
Walter Deverell’s painting Twelfth Night. Lizzie’s new status of model was viewed as an improvement over her job at the millinery shop by her family. The modelling work paid more, and though these men conceived of themselves as struggling artists, they largely came from wealthy and respectable families. Lizzie’s background appealed to the Brotherhood. She was of the working class and therefore these artists could act in the role of the savior, elevating young Elizabeth to new heights of the artistic world by welcoming her into their fold. However, despite their financial situation, Lizzie’s family was formerly middle class and she impressed upon those who met her as being well-educated and aristocratic. John Ruskin’s father described her as a “noble, glorious creature... by looks and manner she may have been born a countess”. Lizzie seemed aware that in order to be the muse required by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she would have to carefully exist in the role of reformed fallen woman: her background just impoverished enough to prove how much she had been enlightened and improved upon meeting the Brotherhood. She changed her last name from Siddall to Siddal upon her future husband Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s insistence that it sounded more “genteel”. She also circulated the untrue rumor that she had been born in a slum. In Lizzie Siddal, there was a willingness to conform to the expectations placed on her if she wanted to become wife to the man she was a muse to.
The pressure to marry well was an intense one faced by many Victorian women and cannot be disregarded when examining why Lizzie Siddal may have been so willing to conform to the expectations of Rossetti, and is also a factor in why Annie Miller eventually revoked the same from Hunt. By the time both women were involved with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, their proclivities for affairs and beautiful women were well known. Any women involved with them would be perceived negatively by association, likely unable to secure a respectable marriage. Simply put, once a woman was in the circle of the brotherhood, she couldn’t get out. The perils of the fallen woman which the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood used as inspiration in their paintings was a fate they imposed upon the women who fell under their affections. To aspire to marry one of the artists would then be the best solution. While there was undoubtedly deep love motivating the marriage to Lizzie Siddal and Rossetti, her “degraded social status” is not to be ignored. By comparison, the relative ease by which Miller seemed to leave her engagement to Hunt appears to be the actions of a woman who did not care about this stigma the way Siddal might. In actuality, they are the actions of a woman who knew she had other options. It is worth noting that at the time she began modelling for William Holman Hunt, she was around the age of 15-17 to Hunt’s 23-26. Her young age is regularly ignored by historians, eager to paint her as a woman who took delight in taking the affections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti away from Lizzie Siddal or one who easily kept the company of other men when her intended fiance was away. Instead, consider her in the context of a woman considering what options may provide her with the best life.
In contrast to Lizzie Siddal’s eagerness to fit the dual role of model and wife is Annie Miller, who fervently embraced the first role and rejected the latter. Similarly to Siddal, she was discovered by the Brotherhood for her striking beauty. Whereas Siddal was slim and graceful, Miller was full and boisterous. The introduction of Miller into the artist’s inner circle marks a shift away from the posed goddesses of antiquity in their painting and the focusing instead of robust sensuality. Annie Miller was working as a barmaid when she was first introduced to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, but may have already been working as a model for other artists. Rather than viewing the position as a step into a more enriching life as Siddal did, Miller solely recognized the monetary value of this role. She was considerably lower class compared to the woman who by this point was romantically involved with Rossetti. She had also caught the eye of Rossetti, but it was William Holman Hunt who wanted her for his wife. Whereas Lizzie’s reeducation consisted of a name change, Annie Miller would require a more extensive curriculum.
Annie was the model for Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience, which focused on the moment a kept woman realizes the immorality of her situation. During this time, she undertook etiquette and elocution lessons while posing as exactly what she was- a mistress. That Holman Hunt had put Annie into the situation in which he was painting and intended to portray in a negative light is an irony that did not appear to be lost on him, though he believed that it was him who was “awakening” her conscience, elevating her to become the respected wife of an artist. When Holman decided to take a painting trip to Palestine he ensured her education would be continued in his absence and her work as a model restricted to a few trusted artists. Rossetti was not on this list. Upon his return, he would decide if Annie was prepared by his standards for marriage, deciding “by her advance”. The flirtatiousness and boisterous nature of Annie that had initially drawn him to her were the exact qualities he wanted to discourage in what he hoped to be his future wife. That Annie would be so easily stripped of her nature and politely follow his rules- literal rules, dictating who she could and couldn’t be in the company of during his extended absences- was an error on the part of Hunt. Her love of fun and ease in which she was able to keep the company of men frustrated Hunt, yet it is these qualities that drew men to her and therefore afforded Miller the luxury of options.
William Holman Hunt embarked on a two year trip and upon his return discovered that while Annie had continued her education, his approved list of men whose company she could keep had been ignored entirely. She had begun an affair with Rossetti and Lord Ranelagh. While Holman Hunt and Miller would carry on in an on-again off-again fashion for several more years, the official proposal never materialized and the couple were formally separated by 1859. She eventually married Captain Thomas Ranelagh Thomson, a cousin of Lord Ranelagh. Annie had made a very respectable match and married into a family of considerable social standing, not an easy thing to do as a woman born into a lower-class background who took no care to be discreet in her friendships with men. Though her friendship and romantic relationship with Rossetti did not end upon her marriage and she remained a model, she was soon competing with another model, Fanny Cornforth, for Rossetti’s affections- to say nothing of his wife. Severed from Hunt and fading from the eye of Rossetti, the rest of Miller’s life is reduced to its most basic components in any book centered around the Pre-Raphaelites. Miller had two or more children, and died at the age of 90.
Unlike Lizzie Siddal, who remained in the Pre-Raphaelite circle until her untimely death in 1862, Miller ceased to be involved with the artists after 1860. Despite this, her name remains associated with the Brotherhood, the very likeness conjured in one’s mind is one dreamed up by Hunt and Rossetti. The same is true of Siddal, though she receives a very different treatment than Miller in Rossetti’s depictions of her. While Siddal’s lower class background was appealing to Rossetti’s white knight sensibilities, it is notably absent in his paintings of her. From the beginning of her work as model to Rossetti, Siddal is depicted largely as a noble woman or as Beatrice, muse to Dante Alighieri. She is highly idealized in portraits, with exaggerated eyelids and bright red hair. However, there is a lack of sensuality in these paintings of Siddal that Rossetti eagerly included in his depictions of other models, especially Miller. Though Siddal had willingly taken on modelling work that was viewed as unsavory and sexual by nature, Rossetti seems to refuse to paint Siddal in this light. In this, he seems to be aware of the stigma placed upon Siddal by becoming associated with him, and in an attempt to ensure she will still be a respectable choice to marry paints her only as an idealized version of herself. In this, the impossible standard placed upon Siddal becomes clear. She must be intriguing enough to inspire, but not sensual enough to lower herself. She is idealized in Rossetti’s work as the epitome of beauty and love, yet he must turn to other models when he wants to explore the concept of sexuality in his work. The most provocative painting of Siddal is Regina Cordium, painted in 1860 as a wedding portrait.
With her flushed cheeks and full mouth, this portrait is immediately more sensual than Rossetti’s early depictions of her. Her shoulders are completely exposed, her tender neck wrapped around with red necklaces. However open the sensuality may be in this portrait, Rossetti does paint her gazing off into the distance. Her unfocused stare gives the impression of a distant woman at odds with the warm sensuality of her flowing red hair and pink lips. In this Lizzie Siddal is still an idealized woman, unreachable to the viewer. Even in a portrait commemorating their marriage, Rossetti is not painting his wife, but the woman he imagines her to be. It is notable that this first somewhat erotic depiction of Siddal comes only after he has married her. Unlike depictions of his mistresses, Rossetti guards his wife’s sexuality as if he is preserving her respectability. Had he painted her in this way while she was still unmarried, it may have affected her reputation more than being an artist’s model already had. This painting is intimate, and the painter therefore intimately familiar with the subject. While Dante may have been concerned with controlling the narrative around his new wife’s sexuality, he was also interested in doing the same thing with his mistresses, as were other Pre-Raphaelite artists. Rather than safely guard it, he intensified the sensuality of his other models and lovers in his depictions of them.
Rossetti’s 1863 watercolour Woman in Yellow was the precursor to Helen of Troy. While Annie posed for both, the lush watercolour is a much more intimate study of her. Much like Regina Cordium, the subject gazes out to the left, her hair parted severely in the middle and loosely let down. Her shoulders are also exposed and it appears as though Miller is preparing to shrug off her dress, tugging at the waist of it. Many of Rossetti’s sketches of Miller feature her wearing a gown with ballooning sleeves, the complete opposite of the slim medieval style dresses that the wives of the artists would wear, specifically Jane Morris and Lizzie Siddal. In both dress and appearance, Miller was much more voluptuous and this is represented in both Rossetti and Hunt’s paintings of her. Though she is painted with the same idealized features of all of the Pre-Raphaelite’s stunners: large eyes, heavy eyelids, deep cupid’s bows- the warmth in this work is unique to her. Even in his wedding portrait of her, Rossetti paints the undertones of Siddal’s skin with greens and blues. Despite her sensual pose, she looks cold and distant. By contrast, Annie in Woman in Yellow appears bathed in light, exuding warmth.
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood often painted their mistresses in a much more erotic and playful way. The same quality is evident in paintings by Rossetti of Fanny Cornforth, who modelled the suggestive Bocca Baciata. Ned Burne-Jones’ depictions of his mistress Maria Zambuco are similarly sensual, most infamously in Phyllis and Demophoön, which had to be withdrawn from exhibition as it was deemed too sexual. Lizzie Siddal and Jane Morris are almost exclusively painted as goddesses or figures from medieval romances. Their necklines do not lead the viewer’s eye lower, and their own painted gazes do not seem to have a suggestive undertone. The women who the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood successfully re-educated and married were rewarded with beautiful and respectful depictions in their work. By contrast, their mistresses were highly sexualized in their work. It has often been suggested by historians that models Annie Miller and Fanny Cornforth were sex workers. Paintings of them by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood makes no attempt to correct these assumptions. Annie Miller was chosen to model for a mistress, and Fanny Cornforth posed as the humiliated prostitute in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Found. The arrangements and occupations the models of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood found themselves in as a result of their lower-class upbringings served as an inspiration for these paintings. These artists were eager to cast women such as Annie Miller into these roles, profiting off of their sexuality.
Regardless of their distinct treatment in the art they modelled for, the women who served as muses to the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood were all subject to the same unattainable standards. The muses were expected to be of a certain background and view themselves as great beauties who were lucky enough to be discovered by the artists, to then have their beauty and talents cultivated by the much more worldly Brotherhood. While viewing themselves as saviors of Fallen Women, they simultaneously forced the women they loved and lusted after into this role. They painted their lovers as mistresses and prostitutes, commencing indiscreet affairs with them so that it would be difficult for them to secure marriages outside of the circle of artists. Rossetti had been in a relationship with Siddal for nine years before finally marrying her. If he had left her, she likely would not have been able to secure a proposal from another man as her association with Rossetti was so well-known. The women in the so-called Pre-Raphaelite Sisterhood were enticed in by flattering artists who offered a better chance at life than what they believed they could aspire to. They modelled and provided inspirations, only to find themselves essentially trapped, larger stigmas surrounding class and sexuality keeping them there. For Annie Miller who did manage to leave this “sisterhood” and create a life for herself independent of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, she is remembered in history only for the time she spent as a model. Even at that, she has been unfairly attributed solely to her sexuality and the ways in which the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood believed she weaponized it for her own gain. Unable to shed the Victorian stigmas surrounding female sexuality and class, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood condemned the women they sought to worship.
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