Ophelia, ca. 1869

About the Work

Commission Art: in 1868 Victor Müller signed a contract with the art publisher Bruckmann in Munich, which obliged him to contribute to a Shakespeare cycle. The paintings were to be sold and the reproductions offered for sale in a high edition at the same time. It was obvious that the artist had to meet the expectations of the conservative buyers. “This all would be a great shredding of feeling. Melancholy, elegiac, blasé, unhappy, in short: quite curious,” is how Müller ranted about his work. This was not the place for radical pictorial concepts.