Study for head of a Celtic woman, from The Play Scene, Hamlet, act 3, scene 2 1897

Edwin Austin Abbey created this study for the head of a Celtic woman, in preparation for his painting of a scene from Hamlet. Abbey worked during a period in the late 19th century when there was increasing interest in historical and national identities. Here, the figure of the Celtic woman is depicted with a mysterious gaze, almost otherworldly. The play that the woman is watching in Hamlet mirrors her own life, in which she is betrayed, and descends into madness. The reference to Celtic identity has a historical dimension because Ophelia’s madness and the Celtic identity are used to highlight a sense of the tragic and the misunderstood. Abbey’s work draws upon both a literary tradition and societal fascination with cultural identity. The woman's almost trance-like expression invites us to consider the boundaries between sanity and madness, performance and reality, as they relate to cultural identity.