John Reinhard Weguelin’s 1900 painting The Mermaid of Zennor is taken from a Cornish folk tale that tells the story of an ageless woman with a sweet singing voice who enchanted a local man of a similar talent to run away with her.
She was spotted by local fishermen later in the form of a mermaid. The watercolor here, an apt medium for the subject, shows perhaps the event of the first meeting of the lovers, as Mathey Trewella descends the steps shocked at the sight of the mermaid.