A lithograph showing the actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928) as she appeared in the role of Hiördis in The Vikings by Henrik Ibsen. It was originally drawn by the artist Pamela Colman Smith (1877-1925) and is signed and dated 1903.

This production was mounted at the Imperial Theatre in April of 1903. Following the end of her long stage partnership with Henry Irving, Ellen Terry took on the lease of the Imperial Theatre where she intended to produce plays in conjunction with her son, the artist, designer and director, Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966). The Vikings was the first play they attempted and featured a set and lighting scheme designed by Gordon Craig and costumes designed and made by her daughter Edith Craig (1869-1947). Unfortunately for Terry the production proved a financial disaster and was criticised for its 'gloomy' lighting and the miscasting of the 'gay and bright' Terry as the warlike and vengeful Hiördis. Yet despite the fact that Terry was forced to undertake a series of provincial tours to recover the money she had lost, she was proud of her attempt and declared in her memoirs:

"I hope it will be remembered, when I am spoken of by the youngest critics after my death as a "Victorian" actress, lacking in enterprise, an actress belonging to the "old school," that I produced a spectacular play of Ibsen's in a manner which possibly anticipated the scenic ideas of the future by a century, of which at any rate the orthodox theatre managers of the present age would not have dreamed."

Both Terry's children went on to forge successful careers connected with the theatre. Gordon Craig established a reputation as a prolific and revolutionary theorist, designer and director of theatre as well as an innovative visual artist and publisher. His sister Edith Craig began her career as a costumier, and later became an influential theatre director, producing a series of plays in support of the suffragette movement.