The Lady of Shalott - John William Waterhouse (c. 1888)

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13" x 10" Artwork on Scratch-Resistant True-Matte Archival Canvas. Our true-matte canvas is a well-textured 19 mil bright white, consistent poly-cotton blend with a real matte look and feel. Utilizing newer giclée technology, this is one of the first scratch-resistant matte canvases available. With an eye-popping color gamut and dmax, coupled with critical archival certification and the ability to apply a laminate hassle-free, it sets a new standard of exceptionalism in fine art. Internally, we refer to this masterful blend of artistry and engineering as "the game changer" that will capture every nuance in your images.

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The Lady of Shalott (1888) is one of John William Waterhouse’s most famous works. It is a representation of the ending of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's 1832 poem of the same name.

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 describes the plight and the predicament of a young woman, loosely based on the figure of Elaine of Astolat from medieval Arthurian legend, who yearned with an unrequited love for the knight Sir Lancelot, isolated under an undisclosed curse in a tower near King Arthur's 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.

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 adopted much of the style of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, though he was painting several decades after the Brotherhood split up during his early childhood. 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.

Original painting is on display at Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom.