Pandora

By the 1890s the story of Pandora had been painted many times, usually at the dramatic instant when every evil escapes into the world. Waterhouse chose the quieter beat just before that. His Pandora kneels by a brook in a dark old forest, and the box of the myth has become a heavy gold chest crusted with jewels. She lifts the lid only a crack, curious, her face lit by the gap, seemingly unaware of what she is about to loose. A thin wisp of it is already curling out. Waterhouse was working in a Britain that loved these classical and medieval subjects, women caught at a turning point, and he returned to that idea over and over. The picture is now in a private collection, rarely shown in public, so most people meet it only in reproduction. The gold of the chest and the cold green of the wood do most of the work, one small movement of a hand that cannot be taken back.