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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-norham-castle-sunrise-n01981

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[from] Nos. 509-19: Unfinished Paintings, mainly of Liber Studiorum Subjects, c. 1840-50.

THIS group of late , roughly similar in size, style, colouring and degree of finish, is remarkable in being based largely on compositions used much earlier by Turner for the Liber Studiorum. Only Sunrise, with a Boat between Headlands (No. 516 []) and with River and Distant Mountains (No. 517) seem to be entirely new inventions. In addition all but three of the remaining paintings are of subjects that Turner classified as 'E.P.', almost certainly 'elevated pastoral'. Of the others, one, Norham Castle, Sunrise (No. 512 []) is a 'P' or 'pastoral' subject, Inverary Pier (No. 519) is an 'M' or 'marine' subject, while Europa and the Bull (No. 514) is based on a detail of the frontispiece, which was not given a classification. The degree of dependence on the Liber model varies. In the case of Landscape with a River and Bay in the Distance (No. 509), Chepstow Castle, which forms the main topographical motif of the Liber plate, 'The Junction of the Severn and the Wye', is omitted, but in two other cases, rather surprisingly, Turner makes the late oil more topographically specific than the Liber plate, Landscape with Walton Bridges (No. 511) and The Ponte delle Torri, Spoleto (No. 518 []).

All the paintings are unfinished and seem to be in the state in which Turner took such unfinished works into the Royal or the British Institution before completing them on varnishing days; see in particular John Burnet's description of such unfinished pictures as being 'divided into large masses of blue, where the water or sky was to come, and [with] the other portions laid out in broad orange yellow, falling into delicate brown where the trees and landscapes were to be placed' (Burnet 1852, p. 100; 1859, pp. 84-5), and Rippingille's description of Turner at work on The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons at the British Institution in 1835 (see No. 359). It has, however, been suggested that these works are more than just a random selection of late unfinished pictures. Lawrence Gowing, at the Turner Symposium held at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore in April 1975, suggested that Turner may have painted this series as a trial run to see if such 'sketchy' pictures were marketable. At the same symposium Jerrold Ziff suggested that, although towards the end of his life Turner appeared to become increasingly occupied with images of disaster, this group of oils, mainly of 'elevated pastoral' or 'pastoral' subjects, shows that Turner still felt that there was a place for the idyllic in the repertoire of a landscape painter and that he may have intended the group to stand as a reaffirmation of his faith in Nature in her more tranquil moods.

On the other hand, one cannot guarantee that Turner, in completing these unfinished works, might not have radically changed their mood; Frith's anecdote about Turner adding the dominant blue to Undine giving the Ring to Massaniello (see No. 424 []) shows how drastic Turner's alterations could be. Turner's last four exhibits in 1850 (Nos. 429-32 [N00552-]) could all have been painted over such a lay-in as Sunrise, with a Boat between Headlands (No. 516 [N02002]). Moreover, if this group of works is as late as has sometimes been argued (see below) one has to face the fact that Turner may have been at a loss for new compositions. Of the three works he exhibited between 1847 and 1849 inclusive, one was an early work left untouched, Venus and Adonis (No. 150), while the other two were also early works, reworked for the occasion, The Hero of a Hundred Fights (No. 427 []) and The Wreck Buoy (No. 428).

Turner's use of Liber Studiorum subjects has been associated with his revival of interest in that publication; in May and June 1845 he had McQueen's run off fifteen new sets (see John Pye and J. L. Roget, Notes and Memoranda respecting the Liber Studiorum of J. M. W. Turner, 1879, p. 71 n., and Gage 1980, p. 206). In addition, it has recently been discovered that the paintings from the series now in the Tate Gallery were painted on supplied by the firm of T. Brown that bear stamps of a form that does not seem to have been used before about 1839 and also, in one case, a second stamp incorporating an element that gives the year in which the canvas was made: Norham Castle, Sunrise (No. 512 [N01981]) bears an example of this second form of stamp implying the date 1844 (see Butlin, loc. cit.). This means that the dating to c. 1835-40 given in the first edition of this catalogue must be wrong and that the whole group must date from c. 1840 or later, with Norham Castle, Sunrise after 1844. In reviews of our first edition Luke Herrmann had already suggested that at least some of this group could date from the later 1840s or even to c. 1850 and Eric Shanes (1981) had suggested a dating of c. 1845, when McQueen reprinted the Liber; Andrew Wilton had also suggested that this group of oils 'are products of Turner's last years'. More recently John Gage has also dated the group to c. 1845 (1983-4, loc. cit.), and Eric Shanes has gone further (1984), suggesting an actual order of completion beginning c. 1845 with the 'initial delicacy and control' of Norham Castle and Inverary Pier (Nos. 512 [N01981] and 519) and ending c. 1848, Turner's physical limitations having become acute, with 'the somewhat rougher and clumsier handling' of paintings such as Sunrise, a Castle on a Bay and The Ponte delle Torri, Spoleto (Nos. 515 [[] and 518 [N02424]). However, if one is correct in seeing these pictures as unfinished works it is probably going too far to derive dating arguments from their precise degree of finish and subtlety.

Although four of these works remained in Turner's collection and became part of the Turner Bequest the remaining seven were dispersed, either during his lifetime or relatively soon after his death. How they left Turner's studio is a mystery. Two of the series (Nos. 511 and 513) were sold at Christie's in 1865 from the collection of John Pound, the son by her first marriage of Mrs Booth, Turner's mistress and later housekeeper in his last years at Chelsea. Turner had presumably given these pictures either to her or to her son, or they had been left in his Chelsea studio at his death and been appropriated, but none of the other pictures in the series can be shown to have come from this source. There is a possibility that they were among the approximately eighty pictures that were rejected from the Turner Bequest by the National Gallery in 1856 on the grounds that they were not genuine, but against this suggestion must be weighed both the fact that these exclusions were made by Sir Charles Eastlake, a friend of Turner's who knew his work well, and also that a number of canvases that were still less 'finished' than those in this series were accepted for the Bequest. Nor can these works be identified in the Schedules of 1854 and 1856, which listed all the works in Turner's possession when he died, whether by him or not. They may have simply remained as a pile of unstretched canvases, perhaps rolled up together, and have been removed from Turner's studio; Stefan Slabczynski, former Keeper of Conservation at the Tate Gallery, who cleaned No. 509 for the Louvre, reported that it had formerly been rolled up as had others of the group (see Nos. 510 and 517). A letter written by Effie Ruskin to her mother on 24 August 1852, telling her that Ruskin had renounced the executorship of Turner's will as he was sickened by all the disputes over it, continued '... certain it is that already Turner's lawyer has stolen a bag of ', which makes it sound as if the studio was open to pilfering of this kind. (Incidentally, had the late codicil to Turner's will that restricted the works that were to go to the nation to his 'finished pictures' not been set aside, none of this group, nor any other of Turner's unfinished pictures, would have formed part of the Turner Bequest.)

Lit. Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 62-4; Gage 1975, pp. 454-6; Herrmann 1978, p. 773; Wilton 1979, pp. 224, 247; Butlin 1981, pp. 43-5; Shanes 1981, pp. 45-6; Gage in exh. cat., Paris 1983-4, pp. 149-51; Shanes 1984, pp. 284-8.

THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (1981)

Canvas, 35 3/4 × 48 (91 × 122)

Coll. Turner Bequest 1856; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1914.

Exh. Paris 1938 (145); New York, Chicago and Toronto 1946-7 (54, pl. 46); Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (34), Venice and Rome (39) 1947-8; Paris 1953 (82); New York, St. Louis and San Francisco 1956-7 (112, pl. 13); Tate Gallery 1959 (354); R.A. 1974-5 (650, repr. in colour p. 184).

Lit. MacColl 1920, p. 29; Clark 1949, p. 107, pl. 87; Rothenstein 1949, p. 24, colour pl. 2; Clare 1951, p. 102; Herrmann 1963, p. 38; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 50, 62-4, pl. 124; Lindsay 1966, p. 203; Gage 1969, pp. 40-41, 126, 254 n. 250, pl. 35; Holcomb 1974, p. 47, pl. 10; Andrew Wilton, 'Retrospect: Norham Castle 1798-1840' in exh. cat., R.A. 1974-5, pp. 172-4, repr. in colour p. 184; Herrmann 1975, pp. 54, 234-5, colour pl. 177; Wilton 1979, p. 224; Butlin 1981, p. 45, repr.; Hawes 1982, pp. 42-4; Shanes 1984, p. 287.

This is one of the examples of a later development of a plate from the Liber Studiorum, in this case published on 1 January 1816 under the catagory 'P' for 'Pastoral' (R. 57, repr. Finberg 1924, p. 227 and Herrmann 1975, pl. 188; the preliminary pen and sepia drawing, CXVIII-D, repr. Finberg 1924, p. 226 and Herrmann 1975, pl. 187, and the underlying repr. Finberg 1924, p. 226). The plate is inscribed as being from 'the Drawing in the Possession of the late Lord Lascells', the watercolour from the Harewood Collection that is one of two closely related compositions, one of which was exhibited at the R.A. in 1798 as 'Norham Castle on the Tweed, Summer's Morn' with a quotation from Thomson's Seasons (both versions are in private collections, one ex. Laundy Walters, the other ex. Mrs Thwaites; the first repr. Armstrong 1902, pl. 16 and Gage op. cit., pl. 33, the second exh. R.A. 1974-5 (640)). Two large watercolour studies for the 1798 exhibit are in the British Museum (L-B and C, the first repr. Herrmann 1975, pl. 186). Turner had sketched this view in 1797 in his 'North of England' sketchbook (XXXIV-57, repr. Herrmann 1975, pl. 184) and again in his 'Helmsley' sketchbook on his way to Scotland in 1801 (LIII-42 -50, especially 44 verso and 45, repr. Herrmann 1975, pl. 185).

In its turn the somewhat revised Liber composition led on to a number of later versions. A finished watercolour in the British Museum (Turner Bequest CCVIII-O; repr. Rawlinson and Finberg 1909, colour pl. 14, Gage 1969, pl. 34 and Herrmann 1975, pl. 189) formed the basis for two further engravings , one done by Charles Turner in 1824 for the Rivers of England Part ii, pl. 1 (repr. Herrmann 1975, pl. 190), the other by Percy Heath in 1827, perhaps for the Literary Souvenir. A further engraving, done by William Miller in 1834 for Scott's Provincial Antiquities of Scotland, was based on new on-the-spot sketches made in the 'Abbotsford' sketchbook in 1831 (CCLXVII-59 verso) and on another finished watercolour formerly in the collection of Munro of Novar and now in the United States. Armstrong lists three further finished watercolours, dating them 1800-02, c. 1820 and 1820-25 ( op. cit., p. 268; see also Wilton 1979, nos. 225-6, 277, 736, 1052, 1099).

Of two colour beginnings in the British Museum, one (CCLXIII-22) probably dates from c. 1817 while the other (CCLXIII-72) may date from as late as the oil painting. Nevertheless, the oil is closer in general composition and in the presence of cattle in the water to the Liber plate. The mass of the castle is however assimilated with the central bluff rather than standing above it silhouetted against the sky, and the other forms, including the barely-sensed hut on the left, are much more impressionistically defined. (For Turner's preoccupation with this subject, and its development, see in particular Wilton, 1974-5.)

The canvas of this picture bears not only a Thomas Brown stamp in the form used from about 1839 but also a second stamp that seems to include the date [18] 44 (see Butlin, loc. cit.). Despite the thin, watercolour-like appearance, the paint was partly worked with the end of the brush (or perhaps Turner's thumb-nail) and also bears fingerprints, presumably his.

Published in:
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984

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'Norham Castle, Sunrise', Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1845 | Tate

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'Norham Castle, Sunrise', Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1845 on display at Tate Britain.

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-fishermen-at-sea-t01585

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‘Fishermen at Sea‘, Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1796 | Tate

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‘Fishermen at Sea‘, Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1796 on display at Tate Britain.

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/opie-mary-wollstonecraft-mrs-william-godwin-n01167

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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) was a ground-breaking feminist. This portrait shows her in a pose more typically used for male sitters during this period. She looks directly towards us, momentarily distracted from her studies. The painting was made around the time she published A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). Wollstonecraft argued against the idea that women were naturally inferior to men and emphasised the importance of equal education. Her radical views on liberty and equality led her to support the French Revolution (1789-99).
Gallery label, May 2023 Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

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‘mary wollstonecraft (mrs william godwin)’

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'Mary Wollstonecraft (Mrs William Godwin)', John Opie, c.1790-1 | Tate

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'Mary Wollstonecraft (Mrs William Godwin)', John Opie, c.1790-1 on display at Tate Britain.

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https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/wollstonecraft1792.pdf

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-snow-storm-steam-boat-off-a-harbours-mouth-n00530

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‘snow storm - steam-boat off a harbour’s mouth’

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'Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth', Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1842 | Tate

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'Snow Storm - Steam-Boat off a Harbour's Mouth', Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1842 on display at Tate Britain.

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-peace-burial-at-sea-n00528

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THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (528)

Canvas, 34 1/4 × 34 1/8 (87 × 86·5); partly painted up to frame, approx 33 1/4 × 34 (84·5 × 86·5), with corners cut across at approx. 8 3/4 (22) from corners of canvas.

Coll. Turner Bequest 1856 (42, 'Burial at sea' 2'9" × 2'9"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.

Exh. R.A. 1842 (338); Manchester 1887 (623); Amsterdam 1936 (162, repr.); Golden Gate Exhibition San Francisco 1939; exchange loan to the Louvre, Paris, 1950-59; Victorian Artists in England National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, March-April 1965 (150, repr.); New York 1966 (24, repr. p. 30); Edinburgh 1968 (18, repr.); Dresden (16, repr. in colour) and Berlin (26, colour pl. 13) 1972; Lisbon 1973 (18, repr. in colour); R.A. 1974-5 (521, repr.); Leningrad and Moscow 1975-6 (64, detail repr.); Hague 1978-9 (xviii, repr.); Munich 1979-80 (367, repr.); Tate Gallery 1982 (not in catalogue; see Hackney 1982 under 'Lit' below); Paris 1983-4 (70, repr.); Birmingham 1984.

Lit. Cunningham 1852, p. 26; Ruskin 1857 (1903-12, xiii, pp. 159-60); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 346; ii, pp. 182-3; 1877, pp. 171, 323-5, 465; Hamerton 1879, p. 292; Monkhouse 1879, p. 128; Bell 1901, p. 145 no 234; Armstrong 1902, pp. 153-4, 226, repr. facing p. 154; MacColl 1920, p. 21; Falk 1938, p. 161; Davies 1946, p. 186; Clark 1949, p. 106; Clare 1951, 107, repr. p. 110; Finberg 1961, pp. 390-91, 507 no. 548; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 68-70, pl. 120; Gowing 1966, pp. 27-31, 38, repr. p. 30; Lindsay 1966, pp. 202-3; 1966 ², p. 52; Brill 1969, pp. 241-31, repr. in colour at end and, detail, p. 31; Gage 1969, pp. 109, 186, 191, 260 n. 83, 269 n. 10; Reynolds 1969, p. 187, colour pl. 159; Gaunt 1971, p. 11, colour pl. 45; Herrmann 1975, pp. 50, 234, colour pl. 174; William Walling, 'More than Sufficient Room: Sir David Wilkie and the Scottish Literary Tradition', Kroeber and Walling 1978, pp. 107-9, pl. 42; Wallace 1979, pp. 112- 13, pl. 10; Wilton 1979, pp. 210-11, 216, pl. 230; Gage 1980, p. 231; Wilton 1980, p. 143; Stephen Hackney (ed), Completing the Picture, 1982, pp. 52-6, repr. in colour and with detail in raking light; Paulson 1982, pp. 65-6, 94, 96.

Exhibited in 1842 with the following lines:

'The midnight torch gleamed o'er the steamer's side
And Merit's corse was yielded to the tide.'

- Fallacies of Hope.

The is a memorial to Turner's friend and erstwhile rival Sir David Wilkie who died on board the Oriental on the way back from the Middle East on 1 June 1841; he was buried at sea off Gibraltar at 8.30 the same evening. Turner's picture was done in friendly rivalry with George Jones, who did a of the burial as seen on deck. Jones reported that Clarkson Stanfield objected to the darkness of the sails; 'I only wish I had any colour to make them blacker', replied Turner, who may also have been alluding to Wilkie's marked use of black in his later pictures. Gage (exh. cat., Paris 1983-4) sees the black bird in the foreground, whose wings echo the black sails, as a duck or 'mallard' and hence a pun on Turner's second name.

At the R.A. the painting was paired with War. The Exile and the Rock Limpet, a picture of Napoleon on St Helena (No. 400 [) and complementary in colour, being dominated by reds. Such pairings of works of contrasted colour were also to be a feature of Turner's contributions in 1843 and 1845 (see Nos. 404 [] and 405 [], and 424 [] and 425 []). Both pictures, though painted to the full extent of the square , were finished off, presumably on the R.A. walls, as octagons. No. 399 [N00528] is now however framed to show the full extent of the painted surface.

Marcia Wallace has pointed out that Turner probably derived the irregular octagonal format in which he chose to exhibit this pair of paintings from works by Claude, the ( Liber Veritatis no. 11), a version of which belonged to Turner's patron Samuel Rogers, and the Pastoral Landscape with Castel Gandolfo which Turner saw and analysed in the Barberini collection when he was in Rome in 1819 ('Remarks' sketchbook, CXCIII-96; the picture is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).

Wallace has also suggested that this pair of paintings ironically contrasts the final resting places of the popular artist Wilkie, man of peace, various memorials to whom had specifically lamented the fact that it was not possible to pay respect to his body, and Napoleon, man of war, whose ashes had just, in 1840, been brought back from St Helena for a state burial at Les Invalides.

As usual the critics, after praising in most instances Turner's Venetian exhibits, vented their fury on his more imaginative works. 'He is as successful as ever in caricaturing himself, in two round blotches of rouge et noir', wrote the Spectator for 7 May 1842. The Athenaeum, 14 May, felt embarrassed that foreign visitors should see such works and concluded, 'We will not endure the music of Berlioz, nor abide Hoffmann's fantasy-pieces. Yet the former is orderly, and the latter are commonplace, compared with these outbreaks.' A 'Supplement' to The Times for 6 May described the ship in Peace as 'an object resembling a burnt and blackened fish-kettle'. Both Ainsworth's Magazine, June 1842, and the Art Union, 1 June, came out with the suggestion that the pictures would look as well turned upside down.

Surprisingly even Ruskin, though finally spurred on to write the first volume of Modern Painters by the hostility of the critics in 1842, had little to say about Peace (though a considerable amount about War) and dismissed it as 'Spoiled by Turner's endeavour to give funereal and unnatural blackness to the sails.'

For a brief technical account of this picture see Hackney, loc. cit.

Published in:
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984

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'Peace - Burial at Sea', Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1842 | Tate

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'Peace - Burial at Sea', Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibited 1842 on display at Tate Britain.

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Please read the descriptions provided by Tate Britain in the link for each painting.  They included background on the literary sources and artistic techniques.  The description of Millais' Ophelia is especially worth reading.

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/john-self-portrait-n05366

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‘Self-Portrait‘, Gwen John, 1902 on display at Tate Britain.

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/waterhouse-the-lady-of-shalott-n01543

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The picture illustrates the following lines from part IV of Tennyson's 'The Lady of Shalott':

And down the river's dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance -
With glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.

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.

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.51-6, 183, reproduced pp.54-5 in colour.
Anthony Hobson, J W Waterhouse, Oxford 1989, pp.40-1, 53, 77, 109, reproduced p.42 in colour.

Terry Riggs
February 1998
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

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'The Lady of Shalott', John William Waterhouse, 1888 | Tate

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'The Lady of Shalott', John William Waterhouse, 1888

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Mary Acton, Learning to Look at Paintings, 2nd ed, 2009

Susan Woodford, Looking at Pictures, 1983

Nadeije Laneyrie-Dagen, How to Read Paintings, 2004

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What narrative is shown or suggested in the painting?

Is there symbolism in the painting?

What is the composition of the painting?

How is colour used in the painting?  What colours/pigments do you think the artist used?

How is light and shade used in the painting?

How would you describe the artist's technique?

How does the artwork depict and illuminate the material on which it is based?

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/millais-ophelia-n01506/story-ophelia

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https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-sun-setting-over-a-lake-n04665

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‘Sun Setting over a Lake‘, Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1840 | Tate

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‘Sun Setting over a Lake‘, Joseph Mallord William Turner, c.1840

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https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45359/the-lady-of-shalott-1832

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On either side the river lie

Long fields of barley and of rye,

That clothe the wold and meet the sky;

And thro' the field the road runs by

The yellow-leaved waterlily

The green-sheathed daffodilly

Tremble in the water chilly

Willows whiten, aspens shiver.

The sunbeam showers break and quiver

In the stream that runneth ever

By the island in the river

Flowing down to Camelot.

Four gray walls, and four gray towers

Overlook a space of flowers,

And the silent isle imbowers

The Lady of Shalott.

Underneath the bearded barley,

The reaper, reaping late and early,

Hears her ever chanting cheerly,

Like an angel, singing clearly,

O'er the stream of Camelot.

Piling the sheaves in furrows airy,

Beneath the moon, the reaper weary

Listening whispers, ' 'Tis the fairy,

The little isle is all inrail'd

With a rose-fence, and overtrail'd

With roses: by the marge unhail'd

The shallop flitteth silken sail'd,

Skimming down to Camelot.

A pearl garland winds her head:

She leaneth on a velvet bed,

The Lady of Shalott.

No time hath she to sport and play:

A charmed web she weaves alway.

A curse is on her, if she stay

Her weaving, either night or day,

To look down to Camelot.

She knows not what the curse may be;

Therefore she weaveth steadily,

Therefore no other care hath she,

The Lady of Shalott.

She lives with little joy or fear.

Over the water, running near,

The sheepbell tinkles in her ear.

Before her hangs a mirror clear,

Reflecting tower'd Camelot.

And as the mazy web she whirls,

She sees the surly village churls,

And the red cloaks of market girls

Pass onward from Shalott.

Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,

An abbot on an ambling pad,

Sometimes a curly shepherd lad,

Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,

Goes by to tower'd Camelot:

And sometimes thro' the mirror blue

The knights come riding two and two:

She hath no loyal knight and true,

The Lady of Shalott.

But in her web she still delights

To weave the mirror's magic sights,

For often thro' the silent nights

A funeral, with plumes and lights

And music, came from Camelot:

Or when the moon was overhead

Came two young lovers lately wed;

'I am half sick of shadows,' said

The Lady of Shalott.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,

He rode between the barley-sheaves,

The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,

And flam'd upon the brazen greaves

Of bold Sir Lancelot.

A red-cross knight for ever kneel'd

That sparkled on the yellow field,

The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,

Like to some branch of stars we see

Hung in the golden Galaxy.

The bridle bells rang merrily

As he rode down from Camelot:

And from his blazon'd baldric slung

A mighty silver bugle hung,

And as he rode his armour rung,

All in the blue unclouded weather

Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,

The helmet and the helmet-feather

Burn'd like one burning flame together,

As he rode down from Camelot.

As often thro' the purple night,

Below the starry clusters bright,

Some bearded meteor, trailing light,

Moves over green Shalott.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;

On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;

From underneath his helmet flow'd

His coal-black curls as on he rode,

As he rode down from Camelot.

From the bank and from the river

He flash'd into the crystal mirror,

'Tirra lirra, tirra lirra:'

She left the web, she left the loom

She made three paces thro' the room

She saw the water-flower bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

The Lady of Shalott.

In the stormy east-wind straining,

The pale yellow woods were waning,

The broad stream in his banks complaining,

Heavily the low sky raining

Outside the isle a shallow boat

Beneath a willow lay afloat,

Below the carven stern she wrote,

The Lady of Shalott.

A cloudwhite crown of pearl she dight,

All raimented in snowy white

That loosely flew (her zone in sight

Clasp'd with one blinding diamond bright)

Her wide eyes fix'd on Camelot,

Though the squally east-wind keenly

Blew, with folded arms serenely

By the water stood the queenly

With a steady stony glance-

Like some bold seer in a trance,

Beholding all his own mischance,

Mute, with a glassy countenance-

She look'd down to Camelot.

It was the closing of the day:

She loos'd the chain, and down she lay;

The broad stream bore her far away,

The Lady of Shalott.

As when to sailors while they roam,

By creeks and outfalls far from home,

Rising and dropping with the foam,

From dying swans wild warblings come,

Blown shoreward; so to Camelot

Still as the boathead wound along

The willowy hills and fields among,

They heard her chanting her deathsong,

The Lady of Shalott.

A longdrawn carol, mournful, holy,

She chanted loudly, chanted lowly,

Till her eyes were darken'd wholly,

And her smooth face sharpen'd slowly,

Turn'd to tower'd Camelot:

For ere she reach'd upon the tide

The first house by the water-side,

Singing in her song she died,

The Lady of Shalott.

By garden wall and gallery,

A pale, pale corpse she floated by,

Deadcold, between the houses high,

Dead into tower'd Camelot.

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

To the planked wharfage came:

Below the stern they read her name,

The Lady of Shalott.

They cross'd themselves, their stars they blest,

Knight, minstrel, abbot, squire, and guest.

There lay a parchment on her breast,

That puzzled more than all the rest,

The wellfed wits at Camelot.

'The web was woven curiously,

The charm is broken utterly,

Draw near and fear not,-this is I,

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The Lady of Shalott (1832) by Alfred, Lord... | Poetry Foundation

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Helene Roberts (ed) (1998), Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography

Xavier Barral I Altet (ed) (2003), Dictionnaire critique d'iconographie occidentale

Getty 'Guide to Imagery' series, e.g. Matilde Battistini (2002), Symbols and Allegories in Art

Flammarion Iconographic Guides, e.g.
Duchet-Suchaux (1994) & Pastoreau (eds), The Bible and the Saints
Aghion (1996), Barbillon & Lissarrague, Gods and Heroes of Classical Antiquity

James Hall (1979), Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art

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Hamlet, Act 1V, Scene V11

Laertes: Drowned! O, where?

Queen Gertrude: There is a willow grows askant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream.
Therewith fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead-men’s-fingers call them.
There on the pendent boughs her crownet 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,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.