Ophelia's Death, plate 13 from Hamlet

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

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 up.” In contrast to the text and most other images of the scene, here Ophelia clutches a tree branch with one arm, as if contemplating her own demise.

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