Waterhouse was supposed to submit this to the Royal Academy as his diploma work but it was not completed in time. A critic named Anthony Hobson remarked that this was his “most delicate conceptions, and understandably he had lingered long in bringing it to perfection.”
A Mermaid is unique compared to the other works of Waterhouse. Most of his works paint specific scenes from literature or mythology while A Mermaid is derived from imagination.