Pre-Raphaelite Women Trivia Quiz

Answer: She worked in a milliners shop.

In Victorian times the areas in which a young lady could get a job were very limited. Elizabeth Siddal came from a tradesman family and worked as an assistant in a milliners shop (a very poorly paid job), where she was "discovered". By the time she met D.G. Rossetti in 1849 she was already an up and coming artist model.

Answer: Embroidery

Jane Morris was a very skilled embroider. Along with her sister and daughters she created many of the tapestries produced by Morris & Co.

Answer: True

Elizabeth Siddal started her relationship with Rossetti through him teaching her how to paint. She eventually gave up modelling and took up painting full time, often working on pieces simultaneously with Rossetti on similar themes.

Answer: Anorexia

Modern scholars now believe that Elizabeth Siddal was anorexic, a disease not recognised until modern times. Her "mysterious" illness was also exasperated by her later addiction to the opiate laudanum. She died in 1862 from an overdose of the drug.

Answer: He exhumed her body to retrieve some poems he had buried with her.

In 1869 Rossetti was planning to publish a book of his poems when he remembered that he had buried the only copies of some of his best work in Elizabeth's grave, in Highgate cemetery. In order to get them back, he actually exhumed her body and removed the manuscripts from the coffin.

Answer: False

Maria Zabaco came from a very wealthy Greek ex-pat family and was a trained sculptress. She was quite unusual for a Pre-Raphaelite model as most of them came from working class backgrounds. Many were literately "rescued" from poverty by the artists they modelled for.

Answer: Jane Morris

Evelyn de Morgan was the wife of William de Morgan and was a very accomplished artist towards the end of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. By 1904 Jane Morris was still a strikingly beautiful woman and the picture "Hour Glass" harkens back to a time twenty years before when Jane Morris was Rossetti's principle model.

Answer: She was a poet.

Christina Rossetti was D.G. Rossetti's younger sister. She wrote the poem "Remember", and the words to the Christmas Carol "In the Bleak Mid-Winter". She is often considered to be the greatest poet the Pre-Raphaelite movement produced.

Answer: Photography

Julia Margaret Cameron was a skilled photographer, which at the time was a new medium for producing works of art. She often encouraged her friends and neighbours to dress up as characters for her to photograph. Many of her photos had Pre-Raphaelite themes such as the Arthurian legends.

Answer: True

Margaret Burne-Jones can also be seen along with May Morris - the daughter of William and Jane Morris - in the painting "The Golden Stairs". May Morris herself often modelled for Rossetti and can be seen in the background of some of his most famous paintings such as "La Ghirlandata", where she appears as an angel.