A Mermaid. John William Waterhouse (1849—1917) was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter who is most famous for his paintings of female characters from Greek and Arthurian mythology. Waterhouse was one of the final Pre-Raphaelite artists, being most productive in the latter decades of the 19th century and early decades of the 20th, long after the era of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Because of this, he has been referred to as "the modern Pre-Raphaelite", and incorporated techniques borrowed from the French Impressionists into his work.