La Boule de cristal

When Waterhouse showed this at the Royal Academy in 1902, it carried a small piece of stagecraft that later disappeared. On the table beside the woman, who leans over a crystal ball with a wand and a book of spells, sat a human skull. At some point a private owner found the skull too grim for a drawing room and had it painted out, and it stayed hidden for years until a cleaning brought it back. By 1902 Waterhouse had left behind the Roman and classical subjects of his early career and was working in the older Pre-Raphaelite manner, with its deep reds and its careful medieval props. The rich red gown here does much of the colour's work. The volume under her hand is a particular kind of object, a manual of ceremonial magic.