Lady of the Lake

Richard Westall · 1785/1834

Medium

Pen and brown ink with brush and gray and brown wash, heightened with touches of white gouache, on cream wove paper, laid down on board

Original size

10.3 × 7.3 cm (4 1/16 × 2 7/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Neoclassicism

Richard Westall's *Lady of the Lake* carries the quiet drama that made him one of Regency Britain's most celebrated illustrators of literary romance — a figure poised between stillness and narrative tension. Westall was a Royal Academician whose career centred on bringing the great Romantic poets to life on the page. Working in pen and ink with delicate washes of gray and brown, he built form through layered tone rather than bold line, giving his figures a luminous softness that suited the dreamlike world of Sir Walter Scott's verse. The composition reflects his instinct for the theatrical moment — not action itself, but the breath before it. Westall was appointed drawing master to the young Princess Victoria in 1827, a role that speaks to the esteem in which his refined, emotionally intelligent style was held at the time. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates Westall's intimate wash technique into the depth and warmth of oil on canvas, preserving the tonal subtlety of the original while giving the work a presence suited to display. Each reproduction is painted by hand — no prints, no digital transfers — so the texture and care of the medium become part of the piece itself.