"John William Waterhouse (English, 1849-1917) was a respected Member of the mainstream Royal Academy of Art, but he preferred painting subjects from the legends of the British Isles, the poems of the Romantics, and the plays of Shakespeare rather than from classical myth, history, or allegory, as preferred by the Academy's traditionalists. His mastery of dramatic narrative and his remarkable draftsmanship and brushwork combined to bring sensual, intellectual, and emotional power to his compositions."