Ophelia is a painting by British artist Sir John Everett Millais, completed between 1851 and 1852. Currently held in the Tate Britain in London, it depicts Ophelia, a character from Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, singing before she drowns in a river in Denmark. The work was not widely regarded when first exhibited at the Royal Academy, but has since come to be admired for its beauty and its accurate depiction of a natural landscape.
The painting is best known for its depiction of the detailed flora of the river and the riverbank, stressing the patterns of growth and decay in a natural ecosystem. Despite its nominal Danish setting, the landscape has come to be seen as quintessentially English. “Ophelia” was painted along the banks of the Hogsmill River in Surrey, near Tolworth, Greater London.
It has often been claimed that a human skull is depicted in the foliage in the riverbank at the right, but there is no extant evidence that this was intended by Millais. Can you spot it when you zoom in?
