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Ophelia

Photo credit: Tate

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The scene depicted is from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act IV, Scene vii, in which Ophelia, driven out of her mind when her father is murdered by her lover Hamlet, drowns herself in a stream: 'There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke; When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up; Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes, As one incapable of her own distress, Or like a creature native and indued Unto that element; but long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull'd the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death'. Shakespeare was a favourite source for Victorian painters, and the tragic-romantic figure of Ophelia from Hamlet 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 Art Gallery).

Tate Britain

London

Title

Ophelia

Date

1851–2

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 76.2 x W 111.8 cm

Accession number

N01506

Acquisition method

Presented by Sir Henry Tate 1894

Work type

Painting

Inscription description

date inscribed

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Tate Britain

Millbank, London, Greater London SW1P 4RG England

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