"The Lady of Shalott" by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915)

The Lady of Shalott by Arthur Hughes (1832-1915). c. 1872-73. Oil on canvas. 37 ½ x 63 inches (95.5 x 160 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Sotheby’s, London. Compare the artist's earlier oil study of the Lady entering her boat.

Hughes exhibited the principal version of this painting at the Royal Academy in 1873 where it was purchased by noted collector George Trist. The painting was inspired by these lines from Alfred Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott" :

Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
The Lady of Shalott.

Hughes was a great admirer of Tennyson's poetry and had earlier treated this poem in a triptych in 1863-64 that Lewis Carroll had seen unfinished in Hughes's studio. On 24 January 1864 Carroll wrote in his diary: "Called at Mr. Arthur Hughes's where I saw the partly finished picture, in three compartments, of The Lady of Shalott which Miss Munro sat" (qtd. by Sotheby's). Miss Munro was Annie, the sister of Hughes's friend the sculptor Alexander Munro with whom Hughes shared a studio. Although this work was eventually abandoned, the current painting may, in fact, be the reworked centre panel of the triptych. A small oil sketch related to this triptych, likely dating to c.1863, was once with the Leicester Galleries in London. This study features the maiden kneeling in her boat in the river prior to its departure for Camelot.

A study for the later painting of c.1872 was reproduced in in The Art Journal in 1904 on page 237. This differs from the finished version in omitting all but two of the spectators on the riverbank, the nun and the girl immediately below her, as well as the swans. When this study was exhibited at the Rembrandt Gallery on 1904 it was described by Frank Rinder in The Art Journal as: "The Lady of Shalott, drifting downstream, her white, quiet hands folded, her hair straying, her mauve drapery coiling towards the willow herb on the bank" (238). Hughes's principal version portrays an incident late in the poem where the dying lady is shown reclining in her boat being discovered by the young female inhabitants of Camelot. Hughes, in particular, has captured well the woodland setting of the picture next to the bank of the river that floats down to Camelot. A bevy of swans swim in the river in the right foreground. The subject of "The Lady of Shalott" was a popular one for artists in the Pre-Raphaelite circle. As a Sotheby's specialist wrote when the work came up for sale in 2024: "Alfred Tennyson's poem "The Lady of Shalott" contained all the elements that Pre-Raphaelite artists found attractive for depiction: tragedy, unrequited love, a central female character and mystical enchantment."

Contemporary Reviews of the Principal Version of the Painting

A critic for The Art Journal particularly admired Hughes's handling of the landscape in this painting:

The Lady of Shalott (949), A. Hughes…. In the first of these the painter has attempted something more than landscape. Figures are introduced, and the picture aims at the illustration of an imaginative theme. But the depth of river-water set in the shadows of overhanging trees is of higher interest than the faces and forms of those who are gazing at the Lady of Shalott. Mr. Hughes attempts in landscape what most other painters leave untouched. He seeks to realize the minute brilliant changes of natural colour, and at the same time strives to bring these rich tones into harmonious and artistic shape. Complete achievement of such an ambition is not to be looked for in this work; but it serves, nevertheless, to show how imperfect is the common artistic observation of nature. In the greater part of modern landscape there is no thought of revealing so much of the richness and diversity of natural growth; enough is done if a general resemblance is gained, and a measure of sentiment added to grant a motive to the representation. Mr. Hughes has a different aim. He is found in nature a complexity and wealth of colour which modern Art has been content to leave unrevealed; and his efforts are directed to a deeper realization than others attempt. The influence of rich sunlight upon grass and flowers, the opalesque hues of moving water, and the depth and changes of foliage in shadow – these are the facts of landscape which Mr. Hughes tries to paint in The Lady of Shalott. The success of the achievement, though not complete, is yet not small. The painter has never quite got rid of a morbid tendency towards a prevailing blue tone of color, which mars often the best efforts of his Art. The fault is apparent here, and both the faces of the country people and the painting of grass and leaf want a certain distinctness and cleanness of color. The picture, however, impresses us with the close and loving observation bestowed on natural things, and the increased beauty which such observation gives to the result. [237]

F.G. Stephens in The Athenaeum loved the design with the landscape being so appropriate to the subject:

Mr. A. Hughes's Lady of Shalott (949), floating down the river, watched by wondering market-girls, is a little painty and crude, and lacks brilliancy. This is probably due to an injudicious practice of loading pigments over one another without regard to their combined effects. The Lady is not woman enough, and the market-girls, even the nun who accompanies them, are little more than children; yet, overlooking this, and as the figures are in keeping there is no difficulty in doing so, we feel that the design is so beautiful, so full of grace, – that rare quality marked with so much sad sweetness, – the landscape is so apt to the subject in its melancholy but not painful aspect, and so admirably painted, that we return to the picture with renewed delight at each view. The boat drifts slowly, turning in the eddying river that issues through a dim vista of foliage to catch a gleam of sunlight in its course, the light falling on the face of the dying singer, and marking with greater brilliancy the wondering girls, who are on the rough bank and among its underwood. The water is as well painted as the trees; while the figure of the lady, her attitude and dress, are delicately designed and treated. [700]

The Spectator found the sentiment of this work close to an Idyllist work by George Heming Mason: "There is really more in common with the sentiment of George Mason in the group of peasant children at the river-side watching the floating 'Lady of Shalott' in Mr. A. Hughes's picture (949), though there is nothing else in it which connects itself with his work in the slightest degree (605).

Links to Related Material

Bibliography

'Art. The Royal Academy." The Spectator XLVI (May 10, 1873): 604-05.

European and British Paintings. London: Sotheby's (July 4, 2024): lot 14.

"Exhibition of the Royal Academy." The Art Journal New Series XII (August 1873): 236-41.

Gibson, Robin. "Arthur Hughes: Arthurian and Related Subjects of the 1860s." The Burlington Magazine CXII (July 1970): 452.

Mancoff, Debra N. The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art. New York: Garland, 1990, 177.

Morris and Company. London: The Fine Art Society, 1979. cat. no. 202.

Nelson, Elizabeth. "Tennyson and the Ladies of Shalott." Ladies of Shalott: A Victorian Masterpiece and Its Contexts. Ed. George P. Landow, Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University. 1985. 4-16.

Rinder, Frank. "London Exhibitions." The Art Journal LXVI (1904): 236-38.

Roberts, Len. Arthur Hughes His Life and Works. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 1997, cats. 66 and 66.4, 162.

Stephens, Frederic George. "Fine Arts. The Royal Academy." The Athenaeum No. 2379 (May 31, 1873): 699-702.

Created 5 November 2006 by GPL; new version of page 14 March 2025.