The Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot

The Lady of Shalott Looking at Lancelot is an oil-on-canvas painting by John William Waterhouse, completed in 1894.

The painting depicts the pivotal scene in the third part of the poem: the Lady spies "bold Sir Launcelot" in her mirror: the sight of the handsome knight and the sound of him singing draws her away from her loom to the window, golden yarn still clinging around her knees, bringing down the curse upon her as "the mirror crack'd from side to side".

She leaves the tower to take a boat across the river, but meets her death before she reaches Camelot.

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds Waterhouse's sketchbook with preliminary drawings for his 1888 and 1894 paintings of the Lady of Shalott.

It was shown in a photograph of Waterhouse held by the National Portrait Gallery, and differs in some ways from the final painting, in which the lady wears a white dress: the dress is red in the sketch.