Sarah Siddons of feminine propriety. Commissioned and completed in 1784, Sir Joshua Reynolds' portrait, "Sarah Siddons as The Tragic Muse", is characterized by Reynolds' inspiration, contextualisation of the Muse, and distinctive brush work and paint palette. This portrait, as Heather McPherson writes, became the known depiction of tragedy, infused with contemporary ideas about acting and representation of the passions in Siddons' melancholy expression and deportment. Mary Hamilton's correspondence with her fiancé illuminated its seamless transition from "the artist's studio to the theatrical stage", practical venues that interlocked in the eighteenth century and formed a large part in creating the very idea of
Sarah Mair Sarah Mair Dame Sarah Elizabeth Siddons Mair (23 September 1846 – 13 February 1941) was a Scottish campaigner for women's education and women's suffrage, active in the Edinburgh Association for the University Education of Women and the Ladies' Edinburgh Debating Society, which she founded before she was 20. Born into a well-to-do family in Edinburgh, Sarah was the daughter of daughter of Major Arthur Mair of the 62nd Regiment and Elizabeth Harriot Mair ("née" Siddons). She was the granddaughter of actor Henry Siddons and great-granddaughter of actress Sarah Siddons. Mair started the Edinburgh Essay Society, soon renamed the Ladies' Edinburgh