John Collier (1850-1934) "The Laboratory" (1895) Pre-Raphaelite
The painting is based off the Robert Browning's 1844 poem, "The Laboratory."
The poem is set in seventeenth-century France, and is the monologue of a woman speaking to an apothecary as he prepares a poison, which she intends to use to kill her rivals in love. It was inspired by the life of Marie Madeleine Marguerite d'Aubray, marquise de Brinvilliers (1630–1676), who poisoned her father and two brothers and planned to poison her husband, matching the narrator's actions in "The Laboratory."





















