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
Frederick Lincoln Siddons 5th Street, NW. Ralston later became an eminent lawyer in his own right. Siddons married Harriet Charles van Auken in Alexandria, VA on April 28, 1892. They had two children, and not three as is sometimes mentioned: Mary Elizabeth, born in 1893, and Frederick Philip Heyward, born in 1895. He was a member of the Commission on Uniform State Laws for the District of Columbia, and in 1913 became a Commissioner for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. On December 9, 1914, Siddons was nominated by President Woodrow Wilson to a seat on the United States District