John William Waterhouse painted Hylas and the Nymphs in 1896. The subject is Greek: Hylas, the young companion of Heracles on the voyage of the Argonauts, goes to fill a pitcher at a forest pool and is drawn down into the water by its nymphs, never to be seen again. Waterhouse fills the pool with seven near-identical water-nymphs rising among lilies, each reaching toward the youth with the same calm, unhurried gaze.

Working at the end of the Pre-Raphaelite tradition, Waterhouse returned again and again to the women of classical myth and legend, painting them with a soft, naturalistic touch and an undercurrent of danger. The picture is held by Manchester Art Gallery and is one of the best-known British paintings of a mythological subject from the period.