[Macbeth and the witches] [graphic] / [Henry Fuseli].

[Macbeth and the witches] [graphic] / [Henry Fuseli].

[1770s?]

1 drawing : pencil, pen, and ink wash on paper ; 497 x 543 mm

paper

Title devised by cataloger.

Not in Schiff.

This drawing was mis-cataloged in the 1980s as a preparatory sketch for Fuseli's painting of act 1, scene 3 of Macbeth, the witches appearing to Banquo and Macbeth on the heath. It actually shows a nightmarish morphing of that scene with act 4, scene 1, the cauldron scene. A toad and an owl--future ingredients of the witches' brew--swirl within the witches' robes as they fly toward Macbeth, each with "her choppy finger laying / Upon her skinny lips," preparing to hail "Macbeth that shalt be king hereafter." A copy of this drawing by James Northcote is in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art. Nancy L. Pressly (The Fuseli circle in Rome / Yale Center for British Art, 1979, no. 100) dates the copy ca. 1777-1778 based on the Italian watermarked paper.

Provenance: Baroness North collection (stamp on verso of secondary support).

Exhibited: The Curatorial Eye: Discoveries from the Folger Vault, curated by Folger Shakespeare Library staff, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C., June 13-August 29, 2009.

Great Britain -- England

ART Box F993 no.4