Mar­i­ana by John Everett Mil­lais is a Vic­to­ri­an-era paint­ing from 1851 that can be viewed at the Tate Britain muse­um in Lon­don. Mil­lais drew inspi­ra­tion from Ten­nyson’s poem “Mar­i­ana” and incor­po­rat­ed ele­ments of the poem into the paint­ing to cre­ate a nar­ra­tive. The paint­ing depicts the char­ac­ter of Mar­i­ana from Shake­speare’s Mea­sure for Mea­sure sit­ting in a dark and gloomy room, sur­round­ed by decay­ing objects, lost in thought about her past lover, Ange­lo, who aban­doned her. The paint­ing show­cas­es Mil­lais’s high­ly detailed and real­is­tic style, which exem­pli­fies the Pre-Raphaelite move­ment. Fur­ther­more, the paint­ing high­lights the lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion of women in Vic­to­ri­an soci­ety, as Mar­i­ana is shown to be trapped in her room, cut off from the world out­side, and con­sumed by her own thoughts and mem­o­ries. The dis­play cap­tion at the Roy­al Acad­e­my, con­tain­ing lines from Ten­nyson’s poem, fur­ther rein­forces the theme of iso­la­tion and despair.