John William Waterhouse
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A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse, 1900
They say the pearls scattered in that shell beside her were supposed to be the tears of drowned sailors, according to old folklore around mermaids and sirens. Apparently painters elected into this particular academy had to hand over a finished painting as a kind of membership due, and this was his.
The Lady of Shalott by John William Waterhouse, 1888
This one's based on a Tennyson poem, and apparently the same painter came back to this character three separate times, decades apart.
Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse, 1896
It's an old Greek story — a young man goes to fetch water and the nymphs pull him in, never to be seen again. In 2018 the gallery took this off the wall for a week, on purpose, to start a conversation about how women get shown in old paintings, and left the space open for visitors' notes. The notes mostly said put it back, they say. Back it went.