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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sir-john-everett-millais-bt-379" aria-label="More by Sir John Everett Millais, Bt" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Sir John Everett Millais, Bt</a>
Ophelia
Presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894
‘Hamlet’
abstract concepts
actions: postures and motions
adults
animals: birds
bank
birth to death
birth to death
characters
clothing and personal items
courtier
daisy
death
death - poppy
despair
diseases and conditions
dress
drowned
emotional states and conditions
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
England
England, South East
England, Southern
Ewell
faithfulness - violet
floating
forget-me-not
fritillary
hand / hands raised
individuals: female
innocence - daisy
leisure and pastimes
literature and fiction
love, foresaken - willow
love, in vain - pansy
meadowsweet
memory - forget-me-not
mental illness
music and entertainment
named individuals
nettle
objects
Ophelia
pain - nettle
pansy
people
pheasant’s eye
picking flowers
places
plants and flowers
poppy
portraits
purple loosestrife
recreational activities
reed
River Hogsmill
robin
rose
royalty and social rank
Shakespeare
Siddal, Elizabeth Eleanor
singing
society
sorrow - fritillary
sorrow - pheasant’s eye flower
stream
Surrey
symbols and personifications
thought - pansy
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
uselessness - meadowsweet
violet
water: inland
willow
woman
work and occupations
<p>This work shows the death of Ophelia, a scene from Shakespeare’s play <span>Hamlet</span>. Traumatised when Hamlet breaks off their betrothal and accidentally kills her father, she allows herself to fall into a stream and drown. The flowers she has been collecting symbolise her story, the poppies representing death. Millais painted the lonely setting leaf-by-leaf over many months by the Hogsmill River, Surrey. Afterwards, the artist, poet and model Elizabeth Siddall posed in a wedding dress in a bath of water at Millais's studio. Through the painting, Millais critiqued the Victorian practice of occasionally arranging marriages for money and status.</p><p><em>Gallery label, March 2022</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
24 October 2001 – 11 July 2005
2005-07-11
24 October 2001
2001-10-24
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-24
Making British History
Collection based display
12 February 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
12 February 2004 – 3 May 2004
2004-05-03
2004-02-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
11 June 2004 – 5 September 2004
2004-09-05
2004-06-11
Alte Nationalgalerie (Berlin, Germany)
28 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2004-09-28
Fundació “la Caixa” (Madrid, Spain)
2004-02-12
Pre-Raphaelite Vision: Truth to Nature
Exhibition
1 August 2005 – 30 July 2007
2007-07-30
1 August 2005
2005-08-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-08-01
The Pre-Raphaelites
Collection based display
10 August 2007 – 4 October 2010
2010-10-04
10 August 2007 – 4 October 2010
2010-10-04
2007-08-10
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-08-10
Pre-Raphaelites and Painters of the Ideal
Collection based display
26 September 2007 – 26 October 2008
2008-10-26
26 September 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
2007-09-26
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
15 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-15
Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/
7 June 2008 – 17 August 2008
2008-08-17
2008-06-07
Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art (Kitakyushu-City, Japan)
30 August 2008 – 26 October 2008
2008-10-26
2008-08-30
Bunkamura Museum of Art (Tokyo, Japan)
2007-09-26
Millais
Exhibition
15 February 2008 – 26 October 2008
2008-10-26
15 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-15
Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
http://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/
7 June 2008 – 17 August 2008
2008-08-17
2008-06-07
Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art (Kitakyushu-City, Japan)
30 August 2008 – 26 October 2008
2008-10-26
2008-08-30
Bunkamura Museum of Art (Tokyo, Japan)
2008-02-15
Millais
Loan-out
16 February 2011 – 12 August 2012
2012-08-12
16 February 2011 – 12 August 2012
2012-08-12
2011-02-16
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2011-02-16
General Ambulatories
Collection based display
12 September 2012 – 31 January 2014
2014-01-31
12 September 2012 – 13 January 2013
2013-01-13
2012-09-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
17 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-17
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 June 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-06-10
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
25 January 2014 – 6 April 2014
2014-04-06
2014-01-25
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
19 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-19
Palazzo Chiablese (Turin, Italy)
2012-09-12
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde
Exhibition
17 February 2013 – 31 August 2014
2014-08-31
17 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-17
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 June 2013 – 13 October 2013
2013-10-13
2013-06-10
State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow, Russia)
25 January 2014 – 6 April 2014
2014-04-06
2014-01-25
Mori Arts Centre (Tokyo, Japan)
19 April 2014 – 13 July 2014
2014-07-13
2014-04-19
Palazzo Chiablese (Turin, Italy)
2013-02-17
Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde
Loan-out
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
14 December 2018 – 19 September 2021
2021-09-19
14 December 2018 – 28 April 2019
2019-04-28
2018-12-14
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
19 June 2019 – 6 October 2019
2019-10-06
2019-06-19
Palazzo Reale (Milan, Italy)
2018-12-14
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Tate partnerships & programmes
8 June 2021 – 14 January 2024
2024-01-14
8 July 2021 – 14 November 2021
2021-11-14
2021-07-08
Museum of Art Pudong (Shanghai, China)
2021-06-08
Light
Tate partnerships & programmes
Ophelia
support: 762 × 1118 mm
frame: 1105 × 1458 × 145 mm
Presented by <a href="/search?gid=999999962" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Sir Henry Tate</a> 1894
<div class="text">
<p>The scene depicted is from Shakespeare's <i>Hamlet</i>, Act IV, Scene vii, in which Ophelia, driven out of her mind when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, falls into a stream and drowns:</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds<br/>Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;<br/>When down her weedy trophies and herself<br/>Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,<br/>And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;<br/>Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,<br/>As one incapable of her own distress,<br/>Or like a creature native and indued<br/>Unto that element; but long it could not be<br/>Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,<br/>Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay<br/>To muddy death.</blockquote>
<p>Shakespeare was a favourite source for <a data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/victorian" title="Glossary definition for 'Victorian'">Victorian</a> painters, and the tragic-romantic figure of Ophelia from <i>Hamlet </i>was an especially popular subject, featuring regularly in Royal Academy exhibitions. Arthur Hughes exhibited his version of her death scene in the same year as this picture was shown (Manchester City Art Gallery).</p>
<p>Millais began the background in July 1851, at Ewell, Surrey. In accordance with the aims of the <a data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/pre-raphaelite" title="Glossary definition for 'Pre-Raphaelite'">Pre-Raphaelite</a> Brotherhood, he painted with close observation of nature. Millais quickly found, however, that such intense study was not without problems, and was moved to remark in a letter to Mrs Thomas Combe,</p>
<p class="cttext">
</p><blockquote>My martyrdom is more trying than any I have hitherto experienced. The flies of Surrey are more muscular, and have a still greater propensity for probing human flesh ... I am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing in a field and destroying the hay ... am also in danger of being blown by the wind into the water, and becoming intimate with the feelings of Ophelia when that Lady sank to muddy death, together with the (less likely) total disappearance, through the voracity of the flies ... Certainly the painting of a picture under such circumstances would be a greater punishment to a murderer than hanging.<br/>(J.G. Millais I, pp.119–20)</blockquote>
<p>The figure of Ophelia was added afterwards. The model, Elizabeth Siddal, a favourite of the Pre-Raphaelites who later married Rossetti, was required to pose over a four month period in a bath full of water kept warm by lamps underneath. The lamps went out on one occasion, causing her to catch a severe cold. Her father threatened the artist with legal action until he agreed to pay the doctor's bills.</p>
<p>The plants, most of which have symbolic significance, were depicted with painstaking botanical detail. The roses near Ophelia's cheek and dress, and the field rose on the bank, may allude to her brother Laertes calling her 'rose of May'. The willow, nettle and daisy are associated with forsaken love, pain, and innocence. Pansies refer to love in vain. Violets, which Ophelia wears in a chain around her neck, stand for faithfulness, chastity or death of the young, any of which meanings could apply here. The poppy signifies death. Forget-me-nots float in the water. Millais wrote to Thomas Combe in March 1852: ‘Today I have purchased a really splendid lady's ancient dress - all flowered over in silver embroidery - and I am going to paint it for “Ophelia”. You may imagine it is something rather good when I tell you it cost me, old and dirty as it is, four pounds’ (J.G. Millais I, p.162).</p>
<p>Ophelia was part of the original Henry Tate gift to the Tate Gallery.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>John Guille Millais, <i>The Life and Letters of Sir John Everett Millais</i>, 1899, I, pp.116–20, 123, 129–131, 144–7, 151, 162–3.<br/>Leslie Parris (ed.), <i>The Pre-Raphaelites</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1984, reprinted 1994, pp.96–8, reproduced in colour.</p>
<p>Terry Riggs<br/>February 1998</p>
</div>

Summary
2017-08-08T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="text">
<p>This painting depicts the death of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Traumatised by her family, her cancelled betrothal and the murder of her father by her fiancé, Ophelia drowns in a stream after roaming the countryside looking for flowers. John Everett Millais painted the setting leaf-by-leaf by the Hogsmill River in Surrey. The artist and model Elizabeth Siddal posed as Ophelia by wearing a wedding dress in a filled bathtub. Siddal and the other working-class women who joined the Pre-Raphaelite circle as colleagues, friends and wives challenged Victorian expectations of arranging marriages for money and status.</p>
</div>

Online caption
2023-11-29T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
abstract concepts actions: postures and motions adults animals: birds bank birth to death birth to death characters clothing and personal items courtier daisy death death - poppy despair diseases and conditions dress drowned emotional states and conditions emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas England England, South East England, Southern Ewell faithfulness - violet floating forget-me-not fritillary ‘Hamlet’ hand / hands raised individuals: female innocence - daisy leisure and pastimes literature and fiction love, foresaken - willow love, in vain - pansy meadowsweet memory - forget-me-not mental illness music and entertainment named individuals nettle objects Ophelia pain - nettle pansy people pheasant’s eye picking flowers places plants and flowers poppy portraits purple loosestrife recreational activities reed River Hogsmill robin rose royalty and social rank Shakespeare Siddal, Elizabeth Eleanor singing society sorrow - fritillary sorrow - pheasant’s eye flower stream Surrey symbols and personifications thought - pansy UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features uselessness - meadowsweet violet water: inland willow woman work and occupations