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Macbeth consulting the vision of the armed head [graphic] / Henry Fuseli.

1793.

1 painting on canvas : oil ; 167.7 x 135 cm

Title from Pressly.
Versions: Der bewaffnete Kopf erscheint vor Macbeth, oil painting, 1774-79, schiff 1973, no. 363; two drawings for above, Schiff 1973, nos. 457 and 457a; also see lost works, nos. 27 and 83 (no. 27 refers to the drawing, which is presumably preparatory to the Folger painting, that Fuseli exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793 as "Macbeth, the cauldron sinking, the witches vanishing; a sketch for a large picture" [no. 110]; no. 83 is the work exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1811, which in fact may be the Folger picture)

Knowles 1831, vol. 1, pp. 189-90; Schiff 1973, vol. 1, pp. 107, 163, 187, 514 (no. 881); Hamlyn 1978, pp. 521, 526, 527, and 529, repr. pl. 33; Altick 1985, pp. 313-14; Schiff and Weinglass (forthcoming)
Engravings: According to Knowles, William Sharpe was in the process of engraving the painting when Woodmason abandoned his project. Sharp's squared working drawings is in the British Museum Print Room (1853-12-10-482)

Provenance: Commissioned by James Woodmason for his Irish Shakespeare Gallery, which opened on 1 May 1793; bought by John Knowles before the artist's death in 1825; Knowles sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, Auctioneers, 8 King St., St. James's Square, London, 22 April 1842, lot 87; presented to Sir Herbert Tree by Weedon Grossmith (information contained in letter of 3 November 1922 from Parsons to Folger; Parsons offered the painting for sale less than two weeks after Maggs); Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree Sale, Phillips, Son & Neale, 13 September 1921, lot 167.

Maggs Bros., Rare Books, Prints and Autographs, 34-35 Conduit St., New Bond St., London, December 1922, £50.

Dublin, Irish Shakespeare Gallery, Whistler's Great Room, 1793 (catalog entry 12).
London, New Shakespeare Gallery, Schomberg House, 88 Pall Mall, 1794-95 (catalog entry 12).
Possibly London, Royal Academy of Art, 1811, (item no. 12 is this or another version of this subject).
Amherst, Mead Art Building, Amherst College, 1951. Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Macbeth (no catalog).
Washington, D.C., Federal Reserve Board, 1976. Eighteenth- and Nineteenth Century English Painting (item no. 8).
San Francisco, San Francisco Academy of Sciences; Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art; Pittsburgh, Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute; Dallas, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; Atlanta, High Museum of Art, 1979-82. Shakespeare, the Globe, and the World (catalog p. 170).
Washington, D.C., Folger Shakespeare Library, 1993-1994. As imagination bodies forth (catalog entry 24).
Parma, Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Parma, 1997. Fussli, pittore di Shakespeare (catalog entry 5).
Zürich, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2005-2006. Füssli the Wild Swiss (catalog entry 183).
London, Tate Britain, 2006. Gothic Nightmares (catalog entry 90).
Chicago, Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2011. Tragic Muse (catalog entry 8).
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, 2015. Ireland: Crossroads of Art and Design, 1690-1840 (catalog entry 44).
Washington, DC, Folger Shakespeare Library, May 2017- February 2018. Painting Shakespeare.

Pressly, W.L. Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library, 24 (Plate 6)

Great Britain -- England.

FPa27

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