Which British painter created the famous pre-Raphaelite work 'Ophelia' in 1852?

John Everett Millais created the famous Pre-Raphaelite painting Ophelia in 1851–1852. The oil painting depicts Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet floating in a stream shortly before her death, and it is now held by Tate Britain in London.

Millais painted the landscape first, working beside the Hogsmill River in Surrey for months to capture its plants and changing details with extraordinary precision. He later painted the figure in his London studio, using Elizabeth Siddal as the model. Siddal posed fully clothed in a bathtub, and the water was reportedly heated by lamps placed beneath it.

The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852. Some contemporary critics disliked its intensely detailed vegetation and unconventional presentation of Ophelia's drowning, but later generations celebrated its beauty and emotional power. Its flowers also carry symbolic associations, including mourning, innocence and death.

The main mix-up is with Millais's fellow Pre-Raphaelites. William Holman Hunt, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ford Madox Brown were important artists in the movement, but none painted this Ophelia.