ART AND IMAGES IN PSYCHIATRY

SECTION EDITOR: JAMES C. HARRIS, MD Beata Beatrix

He feeds upon her face by day and night,/And she with true kind eyes looks back on him... Not as she is, but was when hope shown bright;/Not as she is, but as she fills his dream. From “In an Artist’s Studio,” Christina Rossetti (1856)1(pp796,1136)

HORTLY BEFORE ELIZABETH (LIZZIE)ELEANOR SIDDAL’S COF- while the doctors were attempting resuscitation; Brown threw it the fin was taken for burial in February 1862, her husband, fire, fearing the social stigma of suicide on both families. After her Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828- death Rossetti sought to have her poems published by his sister, but 1882), softly lifted her hair and with tenderness placed they were deemed too melancholy. Her last poem was titled, “Lord aS slender volume of his poetry next to her cheek.2,3 Believing that May I Come (Soulless Eyes Have Ceased to Cheer.)”3 she inspired his poetry, he thought it fitting to bury the only copy Rossetti could not accept her death. He complained that her ghost of these poems with her. The son of a professor of Italian literature visited him every night and eventually turned to se´ances to make at King’s College, London, Rossetti had found his Beatrice in Lizzie contact with her. In October 1869, on his agent Charles August How- Siddal (1829-1862), telling his mentor, Ford Madox Brown, that, ell’s suggestion, he sought and was granted permission to have her like his namesake, 13th-century poet Dante Alighieri (1265- body exhumed from Highgate Cemetery to recover his book of po- 1321), when he met her his destiny was defined. In 1861, the year ems, but perhaps, too, to be certain that she was dead. The poems after they married, Rossetti dedicated to her his translation of the were recovered; his unscrupulous agent told him that her body was Florentine poet’s Vita Nuova (New Life), which tells the story of Dante remarkably preserved and that her lovely red hair had continued to Alighieri’s meeting Beatrice Portinari, his idealized love for her, and grow after death and filled the coffin.3 her early death in her 20s. Shortly after Rossetti and Siddal met 10 Rossetti worked for 6 years after her death to memorialize Lizzie years earlier, and after she had successfully posed for John Everett Siddal. He did so in Beata Beatrix (cover), a painting that repre- Millais’s Ophelia,4 he asked her to model exclusively for him. His sents the beatification of Beatrice, the very moment of her as- sister, Christina Rossetti, wrote a poem about them, “In the Art- sumption into heaven. She is shown as she is described in the clos- ist’s Studio” (epigraph), emphasizing his preoccupation with her ing lines of Dante Alighieri’s Vita Nuova, when he beholds the glory and the projection of his dreams onto her. of his lady, “blessed Beatrice who now gazeth continually on His Soon after Siddal began posing for him, Rossetti recognized her countenance who is blessed through all ages” (Rossetti’s own trans- own artistic talent and instructed her in painting and in poetry. Her lation).7(p80) The face is that of Lizzie Siddal who, in life, William talent was sufficient that, on seeing her work, renowned art critic Rossetti described as tall, “with a stately throat and fine carriage, John Ruskin (1819-1900) agreed to buy everything she produced pink and white complexion, and massive straight coppery golden 2(p273) and eventually provided an annual annuity of 150 pounds, allow- hair with large-lidded greenish blue eyes.” In the painting, ing her to be established as an artist in her own right. However, her Lizzie’s face is soft and she appears transfixed. A red dove, a sym- health problems compromised her productivity. William Rossetti bol of love and her husband’s term of endearment for her, drops a described her health as delicate, noting that a recurring symptom white poppy, which represents sleep or death (possibly a refer- was “want of appetite and inability to retain food on the stom- ence to her death by overdose of opium), between her open hands. ach.”2(p284) Laudanum (30 grains of opium per 1 ounce of alcohol), The shadow of the sundial rests on the figure 9, the number the a common remedy, was prescribed, and she was soon addicted. Wil- Italian Dante Alighieri connects mystically with Beatrice and her liam Rossetti wrote that “she could not sleep or take food without death. In the background, the shadowy figure of Dante holding a it” and she took stimulants as well. Opium was unregulated before book gazes toward the Lord of Love, who holds a flaming heart. In the 1868 Pharmacy Act required that it be labeled a poison; it was Vita Nuova, Dante experiences a series of visions brought on by the frequently prescribed and widely available.5 In 1830, more than 22 000 Lord of Love after each encounter with Beatrice; reflecting on them, pounds of opium was imported into Britain, an amount that had he comes to understand that the Lord of Love is preparing him for quadrupled by 1860.3 It was often unclear whether Lizzie’s symp- Beatrice’s early death. When Lizzie died prematurely, was Dante toms stemmed from a specific illness or drug withdrawal. Gabriel Rossetti’s grief confounded by his projection of Dante Aligh- Still her episodes of illness were marked by self-starvation and ieri’s myth onto her? Vita Nuova is the prelude to Dante’s Divine Comedy, where in the Paradiso the glorious lady “will guide her pil- low mood. At times, seemingly near death, she would recover dra- 6(pxix) matically over days or weeks, apparently dependent on Rossetti’s grim lover beyond the spheres of God.” For Rossetti, who be- attention. It was during one of these episodes that Rossetti pro- came addicted to chloral hydrate and alcohol, depressed, involved in an adulterous affair with Jane Morris, and reclusive in his last posed marriage and, after 9 years together, they were married on 7 May 23, 1860. New stresses occurred when she gave birth to a still- days, it seems there was no such final spiritual transformation. born infant the following year. Diagnosed with neurasthenia, she James C. Harris, MD continued to take frequent doses of laudanum, as much as 100 drops at a time, increasing the amount after the stillbirth. Although she became pregnant again, she remained depressed much of the fol- REFERENCES lowing year. Returning home at 11:30 PM on February 10, 1862, Ros- setti found her unconscious in bed with an empty vial of laudanum 1. Rossetti C. The Complete Poems. London, England: Penguin; 1990. 2. Rossetti WM. Dante Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal. Burlington Magazine for on the table; the bottle had been half full when he left to go out that Connoisseurs. 1903;1:273-295. evening. Successively, 3 physicians were called and sought to re- 3. Hawksley L. Lizzie Siddal: Face of the Pre-Raphaelites. New York, NY: Walker & Co; vive her using a stomach pump in a fruitless attempt to remove the 2004. drug. She died at about 7:15 the following morning. The coroner’s 4. Harris J. Ophelia. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(10):1114. jury ruled it an accidental death. Years later, it was revealed that there 5. Berridge V, Rawson NS. Opiate use and legislative control: a nineteenth century case study. Soc Sci Med. 1979;13A:351-363. was a suicide note pinned to her nightgown that asked Rossetti to 6. Alighieri D. Vita Nuova. Musa M, trans. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1992. care for her handicapped brother, Henry. Apparently Rossetti found 7. Truherz J, Prettejohn E, Becker E. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. London, England: Thames the note and took it to his friend Ford Madox Brown, leaving her & Hudson; 2003.

(REPRINTED) ARCH GEN PSYCHIATRY/ VOL 64 (NO. 11), NOV 2007 WWW.ARCHGENPSYCHIATRY.COM 1228

©2007 American Medical Association. All rights reserved. Downloaded From: https://jamanetwork.com/ on 10/02/2021