Lady of Shalot

Using John William Waterhouse's painting of the Lady of Shalot as inspiration, we were commissioned by a client in Wyoming to create a stained glass window. The subject of the painting/window is taken from a poem by Tennyson, which tells of the Lady of Shalot who lives in a tower, weaving the scenes she sees reflected in a large mirror. When Sir Lancelot happens to ride past, she cannot resist looking out the window but must then leave her tower and float down the river in a boat to Camelot, dying along the way.

We've created a horizontal window from this image once before for a client in South Dakota, but this time the window presents a cropped version of the painting because the stained glass panel is vertical.

Bill is seen working on the layout of the window in the photo to the right, with the partially completed window shown above.

The face, hands and title on the boat have been hand painted, then kiln fired onto glass. The rest of the color and detail was created by choosing glass to flesh out the image. At the client's request, the completed window has a decidedly Autumnal coloration with strong garnet reds and emerald greens in the foliage. The completed window is seen to the left.