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. 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. 'The Lady of Shalott' is one of the original paintings from the gift of Sir Henry Tate.

Further reading: Anthony Hobson, 'The Art and Life of J. W. Waterhouse RA 1849–1917', London 1980, pp.pp.51–56, 183, reproduced pp.54–55 in colour Anthony Hobson, 'J. W. Waterhouse', Oxford 1989, pp.40–41, 53, 77, 109, reproduced p.42 in colour Terry Riggs February 1998