Arthur Hughes deserves to be much better-known and although he was too young to be one of the original seven members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded in 1848, he was ‘one of the most talented and faithful followers.’ (James Taylor and John Dabney, ‘Arthur Hughes’ Kings Orchard’ in The Antique Collector, November 1988, Volume 59, no. 11, p. 113) He discovered the work of the PRB in 1850 through their publication The Germ and introduced himself to the members who immediately found him genial and recognised his considerable talent. Ford Madox Brown described him on 21 May 1855 as ‘”young, handsome, and silent”’ (William Michael Rossetti (ed.), Pre-Raphaelite Diaries, 1900, p. 182) and William Michael Rossetti thought him ‘”the sweetest and most ingenuous nature of all, the least carking and querulous and the freest from envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness.”’ (William Michael Rossetti, Some Reminiscences, 1906, p. 147) Following the resignation of James Collinson from the PRB that year, Hughes was proposed as a member of the Brotherhood but the impetus of the movement was already losing momentum and this did not come to fruition. However Rossetti was surrounding himself with a group of impassioned young artists and in 1857 seven of those, including Hughes, devised a plan to redecorate the Oxford Union Debating Hall – it ultimately proved disastrous as the murals quickly began to discolour as the artists were inexperienced but it was a heart-felt and important endeavour. In his early career Hughes was decisively influenced by the PRB’s principles; the attention to detail, the insistence on painting outdoors and a reliance on poetry as a major source of inspiration. He painted masterpieces like Ophelia in 1852 (Manchester City Art Gallery), The Long Engagement in 1853-5 (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery), April Love in 1855 (Tate) and Home from Sea in 1856-7 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford).

Of the many thousands of paintings by countless artists in British art galleries, two that are consistently voted the most popular are John William Waterhouse’s The Lady of Shalott and John Everett Millais’ Ophelia, both at Tate in London. Arthur Hughes’ masterpiece The Lady of Shalott demonstrates the transition between Millais’ picture and that of Waterhouse, which depicts the same subject. From Millais’ picture Hughes borrowed the elements of the reeds in the foreground and overhanging willow boughs and the reclining pose of a singing woman dressed in a white gown.

Hughes was particularly inspired by the poetry of Keats and Tennyson. The Lady of Shalott was inspired by lines from Tennyson’s lines;

‘Out upon the wharfs they came,

Knight and burgher, lord and dame,

And round the prow they read her name,

The Lady of Shalott.’

Hughes was a great admirer of Tennyson's poetry and was delighted when his friend Thomas Woolner told him that Tennyson had expressed his admiration for a picture of The Lady of Shalott painted by Hughes for Woolner in 1863 (Sotheby's, Belgravia, 19 March 1979, lot 19 and now in the collection of the Courtauld Institute). Hughes painted a replica of Woolner's painting which he sent to Tennyson as a gift.

Although the present The Lady of Shalott is dated 1873, there is evidence to suggest that it was also begun in 1863 as part of a large triptych, later abandoned and adapted. On the 24 January 1864 the novelist Lewis Carroll wrote in his diary ‘Called at Mr. Arthur Hughes’s where I saw the partly finished picture, in three compartments, of The Lady of Shalott which Miss Munro sat.’ Miss Munro was Annie, the sister of Hughes’ friend Alexander Munro the sculptor. She was also the model for Hughes’ triptych The Eve of St Agnes of 1855-6 (Tate).

A smaller version or study for this picture was reproduced in the Art Journal in 1904. It probably dates from 1872 and may record the original appearance of the present The Lady of Shalott, omitting all but two of the spectators on the riverbank and the graceful swans. It seems likely that Hughes made alterations to the present picture in 1872 and 1873 so that it could be exhibited at the Royal Academy where it was purchased by Hughes’ most loyal patron, George Trist. In the same year The Art Journal wrote of Hughes’ work; ‘Mr. Hughes attempts in landscape what most other painters leave untouched. He seeks to realise the minute brilliant changes of natural colour, and at the same time strives to bring these rich tones into harmonious and artistic shape… He has found in nature a complexity and wealth of colour which modern Art has been content to leave unrevealed; and his efforts are directed to a deeper realization than others attempt.’ Of this particular picture, the reviewer wrote that the artist ‘impresses us with the close and loving observation bestowed on natural things, and the increased beauty which such observations gives to the result.’ The subject of The Lady of Shalott was among the most popular of the nineteenth century and is now intertwined with the romanticism of Pre-Raphaelite art. However it was best appreciated and depicted by the second generation of Pre-Raphaelites. Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais did not attempt to paint it in any serious way and William Holman Hunt was the only member of the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood to paint a significant picture of the subject, late in his career. Alfred Tennyson’s poem ‘The Lady of Shalott’ contained all the elements that Pre-Raphaelite artists found attractive for depiction: tragedy, unrequited love, a central female character and mystical enchantment. Hughes’ best work exploited the powerful potential of such strong narratives, such as Ophelia, begun in 1851 (Manchester City Art Gallery) which has very clear allusions to the present picture. Arthur Hughes is perhaps not as well-known or celebrated as Dante Gabriel Rossetti or John Everett Millais and in the introduction to his catalogue of the artist’s work, written in 1997, Leonard Roberts acknowledged that ‘Arthur Hughes has always been an elusive figure in the history of British art, holding his place chiefly as the best of the younger followers of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood…’