Jason et Médée

Waterhouse catches the exact moment the trouble begins. Medea, a princess and sorceress of Colchis, bends over a bowl mixing a potion that will let the young hero Jason survive the deadly tasks her own father has set him. She has just fallen in love with him, and she is quietly choosing him over her family. Jason leans in, intent on the drug and, the painting hints, not much on her. Anyone who knew the old Greek plays would know how it ends: he takes her help, sails home with the golden fleece, then casts her aside, and her revenge becomes one of the darkest stories in myth. Waterhouse painted this in 1907, near the end of a long career spent almost entirely among figures from legend.