The composition is extremely daring: Eulalia's dramatically foreshortened body leads the eye towards a void at the centre of the picture. A group of mourners form a pyramid towards the top of the composition, but the viewer's eye is drawn back down towards the martyred figure by the right-hand soldier's spear, via a zig-zag of ropes, to the young woman's outflung arms. According to the account given by the Spanish Christian poet Prudentius (348–405), at the moment of her death, a white dove emerged from Eulalia's mouth and flew towards heaven. Waterhouse refers to this event by including 16 doves in his painting. The youngest mourner points upwards at a single hovering dove towards the top of the picture, a symbol of Eulalia's departing soul.

The picture was well received by the critics and secured Waterhouse's election as an Associate of the Royal Academy. One reviewer approved in particular of the image's simplicity and idealism and its avoidance of the grotesque. He wrote, 'the conception is full of power and originality. Its whole force is centred in the pathetic dignity of the outstretched figure, so beautiful in its helplessness and pure serenity, so affecting in its forlorn and wintry shroud, so noble in the grace and strength of its presentment' (quoted in Hobson, pp.34–37).

Further reading: Anthony Hobson, 'J. W. Waterhouse', Oxford 1988, pp.34–37, reproduced p.35, in colour. Christopher Wood, 'Victorian Painting', London 1999, pp.236–242. Frances Fowle December 2000