Of all of William Shakespeare’s tragedies, Hamlet is probably the one that has been most inspirational to some of the greatest modern artists, painters and engravers, especially in the period between the late 18th and the early 20th centuries. There is of course Sir John Everett Millais’s eerie depiction of Ophelia sinking to her death, a painting that is often deemed to be Britain’s favorite. But Millais was not the only Pre-Raphaelite artist to be fascinated with the play, and the character of Ophelia in particular – far from it. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, the very founder of the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, shared the same passion, as did numerous romantics, impressionists and symbolists, including Henry Fuseli, William Blake, Eugène Delacroix, Edouard Manet and Odilon Redon and others, as may seen in the short selection of reproductions below.

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Henry Fuseli – Hamlet and his Father’s Ghost (1775)

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Henry Fuseli – Hamlet & Ophelia (1775)

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William Blake – Hamlet and his Father’s Ghost (1806) (British Museum)

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Eugène Delacroix – Hamlet et sa mère (1849) (Met)

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Eugène Delacroix – Ophélie (1844) (Louvre)

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Eugène Delacroix – Hamlet et Horatio au cimetière (1839) (Louvre)

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Daniel Maclise – The Play Scene in Hamlet (1842) (Tate)

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John Everett Millais – Ophelia (1851) (Tate)

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Dante Gabriel Rossetti – Hamlet and Ophelia (1858) (British Museum)

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Edouard Manet – L’acteur tragique (Rouvière dans le rôle d’Hamlet) (1865)

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Edouard Manet – Hamlet et le Spectre (1877)

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Gustave Moreau – Le Prince Hamlet tue le Roi Claudius

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Odilon Redon – Ophélie au milieu des fleurs (1908) (National Gallery)

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