Background information about Ophelia

John Everett Millais: Ophelia (detail)
Oil painting. 1852.

 The story behind this picture is actually pretty hilarious. Elizabeth Siddal, whose the model for Ophelia (and went on to become muse/model to most of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and later married Dante Gabriel Rossetti), was forced to lie in a bathtub full of water in her clothes for this. Since it was winter, Millais placed oil lamps under the tub to keep the water warm, but he got so carried away sketching that he let them go out. She got a severe cold and her father sent him the hefty medical bill!