'St. Cecilia.'; pen and ink drawing attributed to Elizabeth Siddal

Drawing of St Cecilia recording on paper music from heaven, assisted by an angel.

From the Collections of T. Woolner, R.A. and Reuben Townroe.

Rossetti gave lessons to Siddal, his model and later his wife (see cat.no. 127), and to a certain extent she followed his style of painting and subject-matter. Given his compelling personality, this was inevitable. But she has a distinct artistic personality of her own. The present work is connected with a series of illustrations to Tennyson's The Palace of Art, commissioned by the publisher Edward Moxon for his fine edition of the poems, published in 1857; Rossetti tried to persuade Moxon to include Siddal's work, and she produced several subjects. But in the event it was Rossetti who got the commission, and his illustration owes a great deal to the drawing here. The relevant lines from the poem are:
Or in a clear-walled city on the sea,
Near gilded organ pipes, her hair
Wound with white roses, slept St Cecily;
An Angel looked at her.
Most of Siddal's subjects were female heroine/victims,ensuring her a special place in the history of women artists. Cecilia is the patron saint of music; according to the legend,she was a Christian betrothed to a non-Christian, whom she told she had consecrated her virginity to God and that their marriage would never be consummated. He accepted, and became a Christian, but was put to death. Cecilia was likewise arrested, but several attempts to kill her miraculously failed; eventually she was abandoned and simply left to die. Here, an angel assists while Cecilia records on paper music from heaven.

E.3003-1911