The Shrine
John William Waterhouse, 1895
For now, just to look at
The photograph we have of this work is not sharp enough to print at the quality we want, so we are not selling it for now. We are looking for a better one.
About the work
- Artist
- John William Waterhouse
- Date
- 1895
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 88 x 42 cm (34,6 x 16,5 in)
- Reference
- XDV-2879
What the museum label doesn't tell you
There's a niche with a hanging lamp and a carved column - the full apparatus of an altar. But the girl isn't praying. She bends at the waist, nearly folded in half, just to bring her nose closer to a handful of flowers in a blue vase. Waterhouse builds the stage of devotion, then paints pure sensory pleasure instead: the gesture has nothing pious about it, it's physical, almost animal. Behind her, a marble staircase climbs empty toward nowhere visible, underscoring that what matters happens at ground level, in a tiny corner. The Shrine (1895) still belongs to a private collector - it has never hung in a public museum. Isn't the title the picture's sharpest joke?
