Miss Ellen Terry as Ophelia

When Dame Ellen Terry took to the stage as Ophelia, in Henry Irving’s 1878 production of Hamlet at London’s Lyceum Theater, H. M. Cundall (editor of The Etcher) commissioned her portrait from the artist Anna Lea Merritt. In her memoirs, Merritt recounted the story behind this etching and the editor’s preference for celebrity likeness over dramatic pathos: At [the actress’s] invitation I called at her room behind the scenes and saw her as she came off the stage, tears on her cheeks, still feeling the reality of Ophelia’s sorrows. Her emotion was even more impressive than it had been from the front—my admiration was entirely captured. Miss Terry gave me another sitting in my studio and the etching was satisfactory to Mr. Cundall, but, . . . by his advice I had sacrificed much of the expression in order to preserve the likeness.