Elizabeth Siddal used to be known as the supermodel of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s spouse, but she is now finally recognized as a Pre-Raphaelite artist in her own right, working alongside her male colleagues on equal terms. In ‘Beyond Ophelia’ and in our interview, Dr. Glenda Youde shows Elizabeth’s real importance within the Pre-Raphaelite circle and the Victorian age.

The recent bibliography devoted to Elizabeth gives her a new voice. What prompted you to delve into her figure?

I first encountered Elizabeth as most people do, as the model in Millais's painting Ophelia. As part of my MA coursework, I had to write an assignment on symbolism, so I chose the Victorian language of flowers. We needed to choose two different interpretations of a work of art, which started me reading about the painting. However, I became increasingly drawn to the figure in the water and wanted to know more about her. I borrowed the only book my library had—Lucinda Hawksley's biography—and began to read. Well, I was surprised at the stories surrounding Elizabeth and wanted to know more.

I then tracked down and bought Jan Marsh's book and the catalogue from the exhibition at the Ruskin Gallery in Sheffield, and that was it. I was hooked. I visited the Ashmolean Museum to look at the photographs of her work and saw so many similarities with more famous works I knew I needed to put the record straight.

Many myths surround her persona. How did you go about searching for proven documentation?

My main sources were varied—delving into Gabriel's correspondence to find what he said about her work and life, then reading all his biographies to pick out what they said, and reading all the novels written about her and the Pre-Raphaelites to see where fiction was then accepted as fact. I researched archives, exhibition catalogues, books about Victorian London, census records, parish records—basically anything I could get my hands on to try and separate myth from fact. I visited places she would have visited and just tried to see behind the stories to find the real person.

After exploring their partnership for the exhibition The Rossettis, I found your decision to refer to her as Elizabeth Eleanor Rossetti very interesting. Besides the monogram Dante Gabriel designed for her, what were the reasons for your choice?

The monogram was key in making my decision to use the Rossetti name, but also she is buried in the Rossetti grave in Highgate Cemetery along with Gabriel's parents, sister Christina, and other members of the family. In addition, Griselda Pollock and Deborah Cherry deemed 'Lizzie Siddal' to be a construct, not a real person. The real person was Elizabeth Siddall—spelled with two L's. However, there has been a lot of debate as to whether it should be one or two L's, a debate which I wanted to avoid. The name 'Lizzie Siddal' is tied up with the pathetic figure of Ophelia drowning in the river, and I wanted to get away from that as well. I wanted to restore Elizabeth to her true place within the Rossetti family.

Elizabeth's posthumous influence on the Brotherhood is indisputable. How does that make her different from the other Pre-Raphaelite muses?

Elizabeth was the only one of the Pre-Raphaelite models to take up her brush and paint like the male members of the group. Jane and May Morris were more concerned with the 'feminine' craft of needlework. Georgie Burne-Jones did a little artwork and wanted to produce a book of fairy tales with Elizabeth, but nothing came of that venture. Annie Miller and Fanny Cornforth were happy just to model. Joanna Boyce Wells did not model but was an accomplished artist before her early death. Elizabeth's background and family circumstances were also different. Her father was a cutler from Sheffield who moved to London and ran a prosperous business. Finally, apart from William and Jane Morris working together on wallpaper and fabric design, there does not seem to be any evidence of others in the group doing the same thing.

May I ask you if you are working on new projects?

Yes, I have a couple of projects in the pipeline. Firstly, I am writing a novel to tell Elizabeth's story to a completely different audience. There are new Pre-Raphaelite novels appearing every year, so there is obviously a market for them. However, they become more and more sensational in an attempt to gain readers. I want to tell a more realistic story from Elizabeth's point of view.

Secondly, I want to create a website to make her works available on the internet and therefore become better known. I was only able to include a list in the book as image reproduction is so expensive, but I can do it on the internet and gain a wider audience that way.