Skip navigation
Tate Logo
Shop
Become a Member

Main menu

  • Art and artists
    • Our collection
      Artists
      Artworks
      Art by theme
      Explore
      Videos
      Podcasts
      Short articles
      In depth
      Art Terms
      Tate Research
      Student resources
      Make art
      Create like an artist
      Kids art activities
      Tate Draw game
  • What's on
  • Plan your visit

Main menu additional

  • Shop
  • Become a Member
Expand
  • Art and Artists
  • Artworks
  • The Lady of Shalott

John William Waterhouse

The Lady of Shalott

1888

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Historic and Modern British Art: Art for the Crowd: 1815–1905

Artist
John William Waterhouse 1849–1917
Medium
Oil paint on canvas
Dimensions
Support: 1530 × 2000 mm
frame: 2000 × 2460 × 230 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894
Reference
N01543
  • Summary
  • Display caption

Summary

The picture illustrates the following lines from part IV of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’:

And down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance –
With glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

Tennyson’s poem, first published in 1832, tells of a woman who suffers under an undisclosed curse. She lives isolated in a tower on an island called Shalott, on a river which flows down from King Arthur’s castle at Camelot. Not daring to look upon reality, she is allowed to see the outside world only through its reflection in a mirror. One day she glimpses the reflected image of the handsome knight Lancelot, and cannot resist looking at him directly. The mirror cracks from side to side, and she feels the curse come upon her. The punishment that follows results in her drifting in her boat downstream to Camelot ‘singing her last song’, but dying before she reaches there. Waterhouse shows her letting go the boat’s chain, while staring at a crucifix placed in front of three guttering candles. Tennyson was a popular subject for artists of this period, particularly the Pre-Raphaelites. Waterhouse’s biographer Anthony Hobson relates that the artist owned a copy of Tennyson’s collected works, and covered every blank page with pencil sketches for paintings.

The landscape setting is highly naturalistic; the painting was made during Waterhouse’s brief period of plein-air painting. The setting is not identified, although the Waterhouses frequently visited Somerset and Devon. The model is traditionally said to be the artist’s wife. Waterhouse’s sketchbook contains numerous pencil studies for this and the painting of the same title made six years later (1894, Leeds City Art Gallery). This second work shows the Lady at the moment she looks out of the window and the curse is fulfilled. Waterhouse also made sketches of the final scenes in which the boat bearing the Lady floats into Camelot.

The Lady of Shalott is one of the original paintings from the gift of Sir Henry Tate.

Further reading
Anthony Hobson, The Art and Life of J W Waterhouse RA 1849–1917, London 1980, pp.51–6, 183, reproduced pp.54–5 in colour.
Anthony Hobson, J W Waterhouse, Oxford 1989, pp.40–1, 53, 77, 109, reproduced p.42 in colour.

Terry Riggs
February 1998

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Read more

Display caption

English poet Alfred Tennyson’s poem The Lady of Shalott (1833) describes a heroine confined to a tower and cursed to die if she looks directly upon the outside world. By using a mirror, she embroiders scenes of passers-by. When the Lady glimpses the Arthurian knight Sir Lancelot she falls in love and defies the curse. Out in the cold world, on the point of death, she frees a boat to seek him. Lancelot is visible on her embroidery, and familiar Pre-Raphaelite clues foretell her fate: swallows fly low as the wind blows her hair and extinguishes the candles. 

Gallery label, March 2022

Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

Read more

Pre-Raphaelite

Film and audio

  • Look Closer

    The Curse of the Lady of Shalott

Features

  • Tate Etc

    Details, Details: John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott 1888

    Donna Huddleston

Explore

  • architecture(30,960)
    • features(8,872)
      • stair / step(514)
  • emotions, concepts and ideas(16,416)
    • emotions and human qualities(5,345)
      • love(516)
  • literature and fiction(3,138)
    • literature (not Shakespeare)(2,276)
      • Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, ‘The Lady of Shalott’(4)
  • objects(23,571)
    • clothing and personal items(5,879)
      • dress(381)
      • necklace(108)
    • fine arts and music(3,982)
      • embroidery(12)
    • heating and lighting(846)
      • candle(71)
      • lantern(29)
    • religious and ceremonial(1,733)
      • crucifix(42)
    • tools and machinery(1,287)
      • chain(54)
  • people(22,072)
    • actions: postures and motions(9,111)
      • sitting(3,347)
    • adults(20,120)
      • woman(9,110)
  • society(15,153)
    • birth to death(1,472)
      • death(685)
    • crime and punishment(436)
      • imprisonment(25)
    • transport: water(8,015)
      • boat - non-specific(2,203)

You might like

Left Right
  • Henry Woods Cupid’s Spell

    1885
  • John William Waterhouse Consulting the Oracle

    1884
  • John William Waterhouse Saint Eulalia

    exhibited 1885
  • John William Waterhouse The Magic Circle

    1886
  • Marcus Stone Il y en a toujours un autre

    1882
  • Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid

    1884
    On display at Tate Britain part of Historic and Modern British Art
  • John Singer Sargent Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

    1889
  • William Holman Hunt The Triumph of the Innocents

    1883–4
  • Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt The Temple of Love

    date not known
  • Antonio Mancini Portrait of the Artist’s Father

    c.1903–4
  • John Singer Sargent Lady Fishing - Mrs Ormond

    1889
  • Antonio Mancini Self-Portrait

    c.1906
  • Giacomo Balla Abstract Speed - The Car has Passed

    1913
    On display at Tate Liverpool part of Ideas Depot
  • John William Waterhouse Study for ‘Consulting the Oracle’ Verso: Studies of (i) Same Composition (ii) Priestess on a Tripod Throne

    c.1884
    View by appointment
  • Simeon Solomon A Youth Relating Tales to Ladies

    1870

In the shop

Browse the shop
Close

Join in

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Sign up to emails

Sign up to emails

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Tate’s privacy policy

About

  • About us
  • Our collection
  • Terms and copyright
  • Governance
  • Picture library
  • ARTIST ROOMS
  • Tate Kids

Support

  • Tate Collective
  • Members
  • Patrons
  • Donate
  • Corporate
  • My account
  • Press
  • Jobs
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Cookies
  • Contact