John William Waterhouse (1849-1917) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter renowned for his representations of female characters from mythology and literature. He painted three versions of Tennyson's Lady of Shalott, in 1888, 1896, and 1916. This analysis focuses on the first of those paintings, his 1888 The Lady of Shalott.

Setting of Waterhouse’s Painting

In this oil-on-canvas painting, the Lady of Shalott sits in her boat, newly escaped from her tower but doomed to soon die. She is just leaving her island, the stone stairs still visible behind her.

Draped over the boat, and trailing behind her in the water, is the vivid, elaborate tapestry she wove in her tower. The two visible roundrels depict the lady and Sir Lancelot, who is the cause of her destruction and the most vivid part of the reality she longed for from her tower.

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