Art Institute of Chicago

Ophelia's Death, plate 13 from Hamlet

Eugène Delacroix

Date

1843

Medium

Lithograph in black on ivory China paper laid down on white wove paper

Culture

France

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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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