John William Waterhouse

John William Waterhouse was a painter of classical, historical, and literary subjects. His early works were of classical themes in the spirit of Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and Frederic Leighton. In the late 1870s and the 1880s, Waterhouse made several trips to Italy, where he painted genre scenes. The latter painting reveals Waterhouse’s growing interest in themes associated with the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly tragic or powerful femmes fatales (Circe Invidiosa, Cleopatra, La Belle Dame Sans Merci and several versions of Lamia), as well as plein-air painting. In 1885 Waterhouse was elected an associate of the Royal Academy and a full member in 1895. In the 1890s he began to exhibit portraits. Despite suffering from increasing ill-health during the final decade of his life, Waterhouse continued painting until his death from cancer in 1917.