5 historical women who deserve a miniseries from Netflix or Hulu

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Elizabeth Siddal

Think you know the painting Ophelia? The famous one by John Everett Millais?

Well, now get to know the woman who modelled for it — Lizzie Siddal.

She was portrayed briefly in a 2009 ensemble series Desperate Romantics, which featured Poldark’s Aidan Turner as Lizzie’s husband and Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti. But we think it’s time we heard the story from her point of view.

Born in London, the daughter of a cutlery maker, Elizabeth Siddal was working in a hat shop when she became an art model for the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

But she wasn’t only a model who inspired art; Siddal was an artist herself. She starting writing her own poems after reading a poem by Alfred Tennyson in a newspaper being used to wrap butter. Inspiration really can be found everywhere.

She fell in love with Rossetti, and became his muse, studying alongside him. However, she was jealous and melancholy, constantly (and reasonably) worried about Rossetti leaving her for someone younger, and was looked down upon by his sisters due to her humble upbringing.

Their relationship was tumultuous and they had a long engagement, during which he had several affairs. They finally married in 1860 but she died two years later from an overdose of laudanum.

Rossetti was grief-stricken but still a terrible person, since he romantically buried poems with her and then unromantically had them dug up seven years later.

Lizzie Siddal is, simply put, an icon. Her long, red hair is a staple of Pre-Raphaelite art and arguably without her, the celebrated Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood would have had far less success. She was renowned in her own right, and subsidized for her art, but love and life got in the way.

That’s meat for a miniseries if ever I heard it — and so are these other four ladies of history.

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