Who painted the 1896 oil painting titled Pandora?

John William Waterhouse painted the 1896 oil painting titled Pandora. Waterhouse was an English painter associated with the later Pre-Raphaelite movement and is known for literary, mythological, and romantic subjects.

His Pandora shows the mythological woman beside the container associated with the release of evils. The painting is not a literal reproduction of every detail in Hesiod’s text; like many Victorian mythological images, it uses costume, gesture, atmosphere, and facial expression to create a dramatic interpretation of an ancient story.

Waterhouse returned repeatedly to subjects involving women from mythology and literature, including figures such as Circe and Ophelia. Pandora fits this broader interest in psychologically charged female characters at a decisive moment. The work is frequently discussed alongside other late nineteenth-century treatments of Pandora, especially Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s separate painting of the same subject.

That comparison causes a common attribution error. Rossetti also painted Pandora, but his work dates from 1869. The 1896 painting is the one by Waterhouse.