A Tale from the Decameron

A Tale from the Decameron, also known simply as The Decameron, is an oil painting on canvas by John William Waterhouse, dated 1916, in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, part of National Museums Liverpool.

The Decameron is Giovanni Boccaccio's collection of 100 tales. In its frame story, seven young women and three young men escape the plague in Florence in 1348 by retreating to the countryside, where each of them tells one story a day for ten days; the title combines the Greek words for ten and day. Every day one member of the party leads the group and wears a crown as a sign of authority. Waterhouse shows the company in a walled garden beside a stone fountain. A young man in red, seated on a step with an instrument in his hand, gestures as he speaks to five women sitting on the flowery grass, while a second youth listens behind him and a couple stands in the background. One of the women wears the crown, so the day is ruled by a queen.

Writers have suggested that the setting follows Boccaccio's description of the garden at the start of the third day. Preparatory studies show a more elaborate fountain, closer to the text, which Waterhouse simplified in the finished canvas. Only nine figures appear rather than ten, and it has sometimes been suggested that the missing young man alludes to the First World War, during which the picture was painted.

The canvas measures 101 by 159 cm and carries accession number LL 3133. It was among Waterhouse's last works and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1917, the year he died. Its companion, The Enchanted Garden, illustrates the fifth story of the tenth day and was left unfinished at his death; both pictures are now at Port Sunlight, and a study for the Decameron is in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.