Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse them look like actual sculptures in the fashion they were usually depicted in the classical style. Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse is a 1784 oil painting by Joshua Reynolds. Mrs. Sarah Siddons: Sarah Siddons was a well-known actress of the 18th century who became famous for her role as Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth. Born Sarah Kemble, aged 18 she married William Siddons, also an actor, and they had seven children of who only two survived. Sarah's parents sent her to work as a lady's maid and with this job she was exposed to the
Sarah Siddons persona with depictions of "British femininity", Siddons escaped the scathing criticisms and scandal with which other actresses of her time were plagued. She avoided claims of sexual licentiousness, and the only damage to her career was faced toward its end, when caricatures and satirical prints emerged detailing the physical decline and stoutness of her body. Shearer West, in an analysis of the collapse of Siddons' private and public personas, wrote that Siddons' brother, actor-manager John Philip Kemble "substantially rewrote passages in some of the plays in order to temper any indelicacy [and] transcend sexual indiscretions" that could harm her reputation