Detail View: LUNA: Folger Digital Image Collection: Macbeth meeting the witches [graphic] / Zuccarelli fecit / 1760.

6360

FPa89

Zuccarelli, Francesco, 1702-1788, artist.

Macbeth meeting the witches [graphic] / Zuccarelli fecit / 1760.

with frame

1760

FSL collection

___

Zuccarelli, Francesco, 1702-1788, artist.

Macbeth meeting the witches [graphic]. Zuccarelli fecit. 1760.

1760.

1 painting : oil on panel ; 31 9/16 x 56 1/4 in. (81.7 x 142.5 cm.)

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Macbeth. Act I. Scene 3, depicted.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Characters -- Banquo, depicted.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Characters -- Macbeth, depicted.

Paintings.

Hamilton, William, Sir, 1730-1803, former owner.

Westminster, Duke of, former owner.

Grosvenor, Richard Grosvenor, Earl, 1731-1802, former owner.

Bought by Folger, July 1925, $2850.

Condition reviewed the one-piece oak panel has been thinned to 1/4 inch and stained a dark brown. Marks made by the planing of the wood are clearly visible in the sky. Two identical oak slats, 30 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 1/2 inches, have been added to the reverse of the panel as structural restraints and are fastened by paired screws in slotted holes to accommodate possible movement. The screws enter 31/2 x 2 x 1/8 inch wood blocks, which in turn are glued to the original panel. The vertical oak slats are located 15 1/2 inches from each side and are 18 inches apart. Two short wooden strips (3/16 inches thick) have been glued parallel to the grain at the left and right edges of the panel in an attempt to restrain cracks emanating from the edges along the grain. One (5 x 3/4 in.) is located 14 1/2 inches from the bottom on the left and the other (3 1/4 x 3/4 in.) 7 3/8 inches from the bottom on the right

Engravings: An etching, 2 1/4 x 37/8 in., appears in Young's 1821 A Catalogue of the Pictures at Grosvenor House, facing p. 41.

Exhibited: Mead Art Building, Amherst College, "Shakespeare, Hamlet, and Macbeth" (no catalogue), 1951; 'As imagination bodies forth...' [paintings] Oct. 28, 1993-Feb. 15, 1994.

John Young, "A Catalogue of the Pictures at Grosvenor House, London," London, 1821, p. 41 (no. 128); Anna Jameson, "Companion to the most celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London," London, 1844, pp.262-63; G. F. Waagen, "Treasures of Art in Great Britain," London, 1854, vol. 2, p. 173, misattributed to Richard Wilson; MIchael Levey, "Francesco Zuccarelli in England," Italian Studies 14, (1959), pp. 6-7.

Related works: A painting (37 x 47 in.) signed and dated "Fran. Zuccarelli, fecit ... 1760 in Londra" sold at Christie's 14 December 1956, lot 52. This is the painting that was engraved by William Woollett in a print published on 20 December 1770, one state of which gives William Lock as the picture's owner; a canvas (27 x 36 in.) at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, is similar in composition to the Lock version but is inferior in quality; Levey mentions that a picture of this subject by Zuccarelli appeared in a London sale of 1761, and one of the versions was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1767 (no. 196), as "Macbeth meeting the Witches"; there is a pen-and-ink drawing (16 x 21 in.) at Stourhead which is related to the Lock version.

Signed and dated at lower center beneath Banquo's right foot: "Zuccarelli fecit [possibly 'fecet'] / 1760." (This inscription, uncovered in a 1988 restoration, is not recorded in the previous literature; the last two digits are difficult to read and are open to interpretation; "1768" has also been suggested, but the painting has since been found listed in a sale catalogue from 1761).

This record contains unverified data from a re-keying contract and may contain incorrect or incomplete text. Please consult Curator for assistance.

Title from Pressly.

Provenance: Sir William Hamilton, sold by him at auction 21 February 1761 as "Macbeth and Banquo meeting the wayward Sisters in a Storm" to Richard Grosvenor, first earl of Grosvenor; by descent to the duke of Westminster, Grosvenor House, Park Lane, London; sold by him to Rosenbach in 1925.

Pressly, W.L. Paintings in the Folger Shakespeare Library, 95 (Plate 1)

FPa89