The Kelpie by Herbert Draper

The Kelpie (1913)

Here is a watery maiden by Herbert Draper (1864-1920). Kelpies were spirits who haunted rivers and lakes and would prey on sailors and other travellers. Draper's Kelpie does have something of the sinister about her, although the picture was not well received when it was exhibited; critics thinking that the girl's figure was "too modern" for a mythological subject.  Kelpies were creatures of northern myth and her background setting reflects this. Draper was fascinated, as were other late Victorian artists, with portraying beautiful but evil women and this figure joins his sirens and snake women as another metaphor for the destructiveness of women's sexuality.  The fact that her toes are dipped in the water symbolises the fact that she has lost her virginity.  No innocent maiden, therefore, but a dangerous sexual predator. Draper was an expert at combining source material from different places and fusing them together to provide a realistic and convincing looking whole. In the case of The Kelpie the source material appears to be some photographs he took of a stream in Scotland, together with some detailed pencil studies he made in Savoie. The rendering of the transparently clear water in the foreground of this picture is nothing short of miraculous.