Henry Fuseli, R.A.

Susan, Countess of Guildford (1771-1837);
with Durlacher Brothers, New York, 1956;
Arthur Crossland;
John M. Harney of St Louis, Missouri  

Princeton, Princeton University Art Museum, In Celebration: Works of Art from the Collections of Princeton Alumni and Friends of the Museum, 1997, no. 176

G. Schiff, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Zurich 1973, vol. I, pp. 504-5, no. 822, reproduced vol. II, p. 217, fig. 822

Laid down to an old mount. It appears to possibly have been backed with other pieces of paper from the verso. The work also appears to be drawn on two sheets of paper. The paper is cracked along the center, visible in the image in the catalogue. A section of newspaper cutting has been added to the lower margin, laid over the joining line of the two sheets of paper. This addition is probably covering a tear/damage to the sheet. There are a number of other tears around the edges of the sheet, most specifically along the top and left edges. There is also a tear towards the upper left margin that is visible in the catalogue. The drawing has been shot without the modern mount lifted. It is bigger and has another 3 cm around the edges, especially at the left margin. The edges of the drawing are slightly irregular and there is rubbing at the edges, especially along the left margin. Despite these condition issues the medium remains extremely strong and vibrant and overall image still retains its impact.
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In this powerful drawing Fuseli brings to life Act 1, Scene 3 of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  Under thunderous clouds, the Generals Macbeth and Banquo are confronted by the three witches on a barren and lonely ‘blasted heath'.¹  Earlier that day, the pair had successful defeated two separate invading armies, one from Ireland the another from Norway, but the witches’ sudden appearance startle them.  The crones deliver a stunning prophesy that Macbeth will soon become, not only Thane of Cawdor, but also King of Scotland. Furthermore they inform Banquo that, although he himself will not be King, his descendants will one day ascend the throne. This oracle first leads to the murder of the rightful Scottish monarch, King Duncan, by Lady Macbeth and then to Banquo’s own downfall, his death ordered by Macbeth himself, ever fearful of the witches’ prophecy that his old friend’s heirs will seize the throne.

Even before he moved to England in 1767, Fuseli possessed a detailed knowledge of the works of William Shakespeare.  In London, the actor David Garrick’s interpretations of the plays were the height of fashion and Fuseli was intrigued.  Shakespeare’s tragic tales appealed to Fuseli’s imagination and fondness for melodrama and he was soon referring to the bard as ‘the great instructor of mankind.’² In this drawing, Fuseli has placed the figures on a rocky promontory in a sweeping, ominous landscape, railing and frantic, as if caught in the terrible vortex of the witches’ prophecy.  In his usual style he employs exaggerated gestures, movement and eerie lighting effects to establish the demonic mood.

The present drawing dates to the second half of the 1780s and is a study for Fuseli’s The Three Witches Appear before Macbeth and Banquo, a now lost oil painting that was exhibited at Joseph Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery in London.³  It appears that Fuseli had worked on compositional ideas for this particular moment in Shakespeare’s play for many years. Two sheets survive from 1771, when he was living in Rome, that show Macbeth’s dramatic pose and billowing cape.⁴  The artist derived the figure of the central witch from Michelangelo’s image of God in The Creation of the Planets, a work that Fuseli would have seen during his many visits to the Sistine Chapel.  In the Kunsthaus Museum in Zurich there is also a loose compositional sketch which dates to the same period as the present work.  In that drawing, the figure of Macbeth retains his heroic pose but Banquo leans out to the right and the witches form a more tightly-knit group.⁵

The present lot was once in the possession of Susan, Countess of Guildford (1771-1837).  She was the eldest daughter of the banker Thomas Coutts (1735-1822), who himself had supported Fuseli’s journey to Rome in the 1770s and had remained one of the artist’s key patrons.  In 1796 Susan married George, 3^rd Earl of Guildford, whose father was Prime Minister of Great Britain between 1770 and 1782.  She was a close friend of Fuseli and during her lifetime assembled a large and important collection of his work. 

¹ W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, act 3, scene 1, line 78
² P. Tomory, The Life and Art of Henry Fuseli, London 1972, p. 19
³ Schiff, loc. cit., p. 177, no. 737
⁴ Schiff, loc. cit., p. 177, no. 453-4
⁵ Schiff, loc. cit., p. 177, no. 1010