Smith’s mezzotint reproduces Fuseli’s striking conception of the witches as first encountered by Macbeth and Banquo in Shakespeare’s play (act 1, scene 3), prompting Banquo to ask: "What are these So wither’d and wild in their attire, That look not like the inhabitants o’ the earth, And yet are on’t?.../ You seem to understand me, By each at once her chappy finger laying / Upon her skinny lips . . ." After a seven-year sojourn in Rome, Fuseli settled in London in 1779 and became known for painting imaginative and disturbing subjects. The overlapping, profile presentation of the witches echoes classical reliefs, but their features, gestures, and flying skull-headed companion demonstrate an equal familiarity with macabre precedents in the work of Italian painters such as Domenico Veneziano and Salvator Rosa.
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Dimensions:sheet: 18 1/16 x 21 7/8 in. (45.8 x 55.5 cm)
Classification:Prints
Credit Line:The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959
Object Number:59.570.361
Signature: in plate: "Painted by H. Fuseli" ; "Engraved by J. R. Smith Mezzotinto Engraver to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales"
Inscription: in plate below image: "each at once her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips"; lower center: "London Published March 10th 1785 by J. R.Smith No. 83 Oxford Street"
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Drawings and Prints: Selections from the Permanent Collection," April 12–July 18, 2016.
Frankau 371; Weinglass 73; D'Oench 256
John Raphael Smith A Catalogue of Prints Published by J. R. Smith, (No. 31) King Street, Covent Garden. London, ca. 1798, cat. no. 79.
Julia Frankau John Raphael Smith: His Life and Works. London, 1902, cat. no. 371, p. 240.
Gert Schiff Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741-1825. Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, Oeuvrekataloge Schweizer Künstler, 2 vols., Zurich and Munich, 1973, cat. nos. 733-736: related paintings (1783, Kunsthaus, Zurich; Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Straford-upon-Avon; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh): Vol. I, p. 492; Vol. II, p. 176, ill.
Gert Schiff Henry Fuseli, 1741-1825 Ex. cat., Tate Gallery. 1975, cat. no. 59.
David H. Weinglass Prints and Engraved Illustrations by and after Henry Fuseli; A Catalogue Raisonné. Aldershot, Hampshire and Brookfield, Vermont, 1994, cat. no. 73, p. 77.
Tim Clayton The English Print 1688-1802. Yale, 1997, p. 238, pl. 254.
David H. Weinglass, Fred Licht, Simona Tosini Pizzetti Füssli pittore di Shakespeare : pittura e teatro, 1775-1825 Ex. cat., Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Mamiano di Traversetolo, Parma. Milan, 1997, cat. no. 54.
Ellen D'Oench "Copper into Gold": Prints by John Raphael Smith, 1751–1812. New Haven and London, 1999, cat. no. 256, pp. 82, 85, 222, with publication date March 10, 1785.
Jane Martineau, Jonathan Bate, David Alexander, Christopher Baugh, John Warrack, Brian Allen, Maria Grazia Messina, Robin Hamlyn, Desmond Shawe-Taylor, John Christian Shakespeare in Art. Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Dulwich Picture Gallery. London and New York, 2003, cat. no. 12, pp. 78-9 (related painting, ca. 1783, Royal Shakespeare Company Collection, Stratford-upon-Avon), ill.
Peter Whitfield Illustrating Shakespeare. British Library, London, 2013, p. 44.
In celebration of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, Curator Constance C. McPhee takes a look at several works now on display in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery that reflect on the Bard and his writing.
John Raphael Smith (British, baptized Derby 1751–1812 Doncaster)
1776
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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.
