Lady of Shallot Pre-Raphaelite Painting

The pre-Raphaelite oil painting Lady of Shallot by John William Waterhouse is based upon the poem of the same name by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Condemned to a tower prison cell, the Lady could only weave what she saw through a mirror into a tapestry. One day, she saw Lancelot and the knights of Camelot riding by in her mirror and she dared to look directly out her window upon King Arthur’s Camelot. Escaping her curse, she floated down a river towards Camelot, where Lancelot and the knights found her dead body. Depicting the lady with her tapestry draped over the side of her river boat, the painting reflects the pre-Raphaelite emphasis on jewel-like colours, decorative patterns, medieval and early Renaissance compositional styles, and influences from the schools of Romanticism and Impressionism. John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917) was an English painter of the Pre-Raphaelite school of the late 19th century. After studying at the British Royal Academy of Art, Waterhouse painted classical scenes from ancient Greek mythology, gradually acquiring the stylistic traits of the Pre-Raphaelites as well as the painterly qualities of the French Impressionists. Though overshadowed by the more famous members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Waterhouse exhibited with great success and produced many paintings with themes of female figures from mythology and the legends of King Arthur.