Ophelia's Death, plate 13 from Hamlet
1843
Medium
Lithograph in black on ivory China paper laid down on white wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 15.8 × 25.7 cm (6 1/4 × 10 1/8 in.); Sheet: 35.7 × 54.9 cm (14 1/16 × 21 5/8 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
142584
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
In this lithograph from Eugène Delacroix’s Hamlet series, the haunted, bedraggled Ophelia dangles herself above a stream in the moments before her death. Delacroix imbued the rushing water with a sense of loose fluidity through his keen use of the medium. Although Ophelia’s death happens offstage, it is recounted in a moving speech by Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, who describes the drowning Ophelia as “incapable of her own distress”: “Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like, a while they bore her...
About the Artist
Eugène Delacroix · 1798–1863
Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) stands as the defining figure of French Romanticism and a pivotal bridge to modernism. Born in Charenton-Saint-Maurice near Paris, he came from distinguished lineage—his mother descended from the prestigious Oeben-Riesener furniture dynasty, while persistent speculation suggested the statesman Talleyrand may have been his biological father, a theory supported by physic...