“This highly-impressionistic sketch is a study of the female model in Waterhouse’s painting of 1893 entitled A Naiad (private collection). It anticipates his masterpiece of three years later Hylas and the Nymphs (1896, Manchester City Gallery), which depicts Hylas, a companion of Hercules, who becomes bewitched by a group of mesmerisingly beautiful water-nymphs who lure … Continue reading John William Waterhouse: Female head study for ‘A Naiad’