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
To Mrs Siddons works. Mrs Siddons, as Coleridge refers to her, was an actress that he became aware of during his college years. In his letters to his childhood friend Mary Evans, Coleridge would mention various performances that he witnessed when he would slip into London. The sonnet dedicated to her, "To Mrs Siddons", is the eighth poem of Coleridge's "Sonnets on Eminent Characters" series, printed in the 29 December 1794 "Morning Chronicle" as written by Coleridge. However, it is uncertain as to who originally wrote the poem. In a letter written by Lamb in June 1796, he speaks of the poem as