He was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter most famous for his paintings of female characters from mythology and literature. He belonged to the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

About John William Waterhouse: The English Artist, John William Waterhouse was born in Rome to the painters William and Isabela, and he studied painting under his father before entering the Royal Academy schools in 1870. One of his most famous works is The Lady of Shalott, a study of Elaine of Astolat, who dies of grief when Lancelot will not love her. the most famous of his paintings of Ophelia depicts her just before her death, putting flowers in her hair as she sits on a tree branch leaning over a lake. Like The Lady of Shalott and other John William Waterhouse paintings, it deals with a woman dying in or near water.