Spotlight on Ophelia by John Everett Millais in articles from the artzine on artrepublic.com

After 18 months of detailed research, Barbara Webb has revealed that Six Acre Meadow on the west bank at the bottom of the Manor House garden in Old Malden was the spot where Millais did his detailed studies for the background of Ophelia.

Ophelia still remains one of the most popular paintings in the Tate collection, and the story of its creation has captured the imagination as much as the final paintings beauty.

Shakespeare was a popular subject for Victorian painters and Ophelia is a character in Hamlet. She is driven mad when her father, Polonius, is murdered by her lover, Hamlet. She dies while still very young in grief and madness. The events shown in Millais's Ophelia are not actually seen on stage. Instead they are referred to in a conversation between Queen Gertrude and Ophelia's brother Laertes. Gertrude describes how Ophelia fell into the river whilst picking flowers and slowly drowned, singing all the while.

Most of the flowers in Ophelia are included either because they are mentioned in the play, or for their symbolic value. Millais observed these flowers growing wild by the river. Because he painted the river scene over a period of five months, flowers appear next to those that bloom at different times of the year. Millais always painted direct from nature itself with great attention to detail. The flowers are real, individual flowers and he has shown the dead and broken leaves as well as the flowers in full bloom.

The pre-Raphaelite brotherhood like other art movements of the time would work outside and produce sketches, which they would then take back to their studio and use as reference to create a larger finished painting, and this is how Millais created the amazingly detailed background.  

The model for Ophelia was Elizabeth Siddall, who featured in several Pre-Raphaelite paintings and became Dante Gabriel Rossetti muse and wife. 

She posed for Millais in a very fine silver embroidered dress (bought by Millais from a second-hand shop) and lay in a bath full of water to create the effect of Ophelia lying in the river. To keep the water warm some oil lamps were placed underneath unfortunately on one occasion Millais was so engrossed by his painting that he didn't notice the lamps went out. As a result of this rather extreme modelling Elizabeth became quite ill. Elizabeth's father was furious that his precious daughter had treated this way and ordered Millais to pay the medical bills. However she recovered quickly.

Sadly Elizabeth Siddall died in 1862 of a laudanum overdose. Millais's image of the tragic death of Ophelia has continued to enchant the public from the day it was first shown to today.