Consulting the Oracle

Date: 1884

In this painting Waterhouse depicts a semicircle of woman seeking the prophecies of the Teraph (a human skull), and the figure of the priestess as she ‘interprets its decree with terror’… The Illustrated London News described it as one of the principal works of the year and engraved it across two pages of an extra supplement: it was bought by Sir Henry Tate and is one of the four Waterhouse pictures in the Tate Gallery.

Source: Anthony Hobson, J W Waterhouse, 1989, p.34.