This scene from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet depicts the assembled court of Denmark watching a play that Hamlet has devised to "catch the conscience of the king." Suspecting that his father, the former king, was poisoned by his uncle Claudius, Hamlet has orchestrated a performance with a similar assassination plot. Languidly sprawled on the ground beside a wide-eyed Ophelia, Hamlet looks furtively over his shoulder to gauge his uncle’s reaction. Everyone else stares beyond the painting’s setting, toward the "play" before them. The viewer, standing in front of the canvas, thus occupies the same space as the actors on stage. The Philadelphia-born Edwin Austin Abbey, who settled in London in 1878, won fame on both sides of the Atlantic as an illustrator and painter of literary classics.