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 and was considered by some a "grotesque effigy of her former self." William Hazlitt, in his later accounts, stated that her performances lacked the grandeur they had shown in 1785: the "machinery of her voice is slow, there is too long a pause between each sentence [and the] sleeping scene was more laboured and less natural". As a result, according to Lisa Freeman, Siddons' "iconic status came into conflict with the aesthetic of authenticity that she cultivated". Her last appearance was on 9 June 1819 as Lady Randolph in John Home's play "Douglas". Theatre biographer Henry Barton Baker wrote: On