Beautiful Lady Without Pity Playing Cards

This design features a painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist John William Waterhouse (1849–1917). It shows an attractive woman in a Mediaeval woodland. There is a knight in armour kneeling down beside her. She is wrapping her long brown hair around his neck, bringing him closer to her as looks lovingly into his eyes. She is wearing a purple dress and she has bare feet. There are flowers strewn around her. The knight looks bewildered but entranced by the woman's beauty. The scene is based on a ballad by English poet John Keats called "La Belle Dame sans Merci" [The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy]. The poem is about a fairy who condemns a knight to an unpleasant fate after she seduces him with her beautiful eyes and singing. The original artwork was painted by John William Waterhouse in 1893.