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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/john-william-waterhouse-583" aria-label="More by John William Waterhouse" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">John William Waterhouse</a>
Lady Shalott
Presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894
actions: postures and motions
adults
animals: birds
architecture
bird - non-specific
birth to death
boat - non-specific
candle
chain
clothing and personal items
crime and punishment
crucifix
death
dress
embroidery
emotions and human qualities
emotions, concepts and ideas
evening
features
fine arts and music
heating and lighting
imprisonment
landscape
lantern
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
love
necklace
objects
people
plants and flowers
reed
religious and ceremonial
river
sitting
society
stair / step
Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, ‘The Lady of Shalott’
times of the day
tools and machinery
transport: water
water: inland
woman
wooded
<p>English poet Alfred Tennyson’s poem <span>The Lady of Shalott </span>(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.</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
17 December 2008 – 31 January 2010
2010-01-31
14 December 2008 – 3 May 2009
2009-05-03
2008-12-14
Groninger Museum (Groningen, The Netherlands)
http://www.groninger-museum.nl
23 June 2009 – 13 September 2009
2009-09-13
2009-06-23
Royal Academy of Arts (London, UK)
http://www.royalacademy.org.uk
2008-12-17
J.W. Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite
Loan-out
15 September 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
15 September 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
2012-09-15
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Birmingham, UK)
http://www.bmag.org.uk
2012-09-15
Love and Death: Victorian Paintings from Tate
Loan-out
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
2012-11-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-05
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)
13 May 2021 – 19 September 2021
2021-09-19
2021-05-13
Hungarian National Gallery (Budapest, Hungary)
2018-12-14
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
Tate partnerships & programmes
26 September 2022
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2022-09-26
Gallery 9
Collection based display
14 October 2022 – 30 September 2023
2023-09-30
17 June 2023 – 30 September 2023
2023-09-30
2023-06-17
Falmouth Art Gallery (Falmouth, UK)
2022-10-14
The Legend of King Arthur: A Pre-Raphaelite Love Story
Loan-out
The Lady of Shalott
support: 1530 × 2000 mm
frame: 2000 × 2460 × 230 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 picture illustrates the following lines from part IV of Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’:</p>
<p>And down the river’s dim expanse<br/>Like some bold seer in a trance,<br/>Seeing all his own mischance –<br/>With glassy countenance<br/>Did she look to Camelot.<br/>And at the closing of the day<br/>She loosed the chain, and down she lay;<br/>The broad stream bore her far away,<br/>The Lady of Shalott.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>
<i>The Lady of Shalott</i> is one of the original paintings from the gift of Sir Henry Tate.</p>
<p>
<b>Further reading</b>
<br/>Anthony Hobson, <i>The Art and Life of J W Waterhouse RA 1849–1917</i>, London 1980, pp.51–6, 183, reproduced pp.54–5 in colour.<br/>Anthony Hobson, <i>J W Waterhouse</i>, Oxford 1989, pp.40–1, 53, 77, 109, reproduced p.42 in colour.</p>
<p>Terry Riggs<br/>February 1998</p>
</div>

Summary
2015-11-25T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div><p><span>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. Pre-Raphaelite clues foretell her fate: swallows fly low as the wind blows her hair and extinguishes the candles.</span></p></div>
Online caption
2024-04-22T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions adults animals: birds architecture bird - non-specific birth to death boat - non-specific candle chain clothing and personal items crime and punishment crucifix death dress embroidery emotions and human qualities emotions, concepts and ideas evening features fine arts and music heating and lighting imprisonment landscape lantern literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) love necklace objects people plants and flowers reed religious and ceremonial river sitting society stair / step Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, ‘The Lady of Shalott’ times of the day tools and machinery transport: water water: inland woman wooded