Ophelia (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7)

Sir John Everett Millais

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Here, Hamlet’s rejected lover, her mind unhinged, has fallen into a brook while picking wildflowers. Inspired by an evocative description of Ophelia’s death in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (act 4, scene 7), Millais painted the subject for a London Royal Academy exhibition in 1852; this masterful print reproduces that composition. As a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Millais challenged artistic convention and spent months outdoors painting the lush setting, and then posed a model in a bathtub in his studio to complete the composition. The painting’s hyperrealistic detail and collapsed space initially unsettled viewers, but this later print encouraged admiration for the groundbreaking conception. Stephenson combined mezzotint, etching, and stipple to evoke the rich silverwork adorning Ophelia’s gown and describe the range of plants and flowers embellishing her watery grave.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art