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Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
Presented by Sir Joseph Duveen 1906
‘Macbeth’
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<p>The famous actress, Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928), is shown here in the role of Lady Macbeth. At the first performance in 1888, Sargent was struck by Terry's appearance and persuaded her to sit for a portrait. He invented her dramatic pose, which did not occur in the production. Oscar Wilde, who saw Terry's arrival at Sargent's Chelsea studio, remarked, 'The street that on a wet and dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady Macbeth in full regalia magnificently seated in a four-wheeler can never again be as other streets: it must always be full of wonderful possibilities.'</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
24 October 2001 – 11 July 2005
2005-07-11
24 October 2001
2001-10-24
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-24
Making British History
Collection based display
11 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
11 October 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
2002-10-11
Frist Center for the Visual Arts (Nashville, USA)
2002-10-11
Whistler Sargent and Steer - Frist
Tate partnerships & programmes
3 July 2004 – 11 September 2004
2004-09-11
3 July 2004 – 11 September 2004
2004-09-11
2004-07-03
Aberdeen Art Gallery (Aberdeen, UK)
http://www.aagm.co.uk
2004-07-03
John Singer Sargent and His Scottish Friends
Loan-out
19 June 2006 – 4 December 2006
2006-12-04
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-06-19
The Swagger Portrait
Collection based display
1 October 2009 – 26 September 2010
2010-09-26
1 October 2009 – 3 January 2010
2010-01-03
2009-10-01
Musée Cantini (Marseille, France)
6 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
2010-05-23
2010-02-06
Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Rovereto, Italy)
http://www.mart.trento.it/
19 June 2010 – 26 September 2010
2010-09-26
2010-06-19
Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Canada)
http://www.ago.net
2009-10-01
Les Enfants du Paradis
Loan-out
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2010-12-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-12-02
Gallery 9
Collection based display
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
5 November 2012 – 20 July 2014
2014-07-20
2012-11-05
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-11-05
Gallery 9
Collection based display
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
5 February 2015 – 4 October 2015
2015-10-04
5 February 2015 – 25 May 2015
2015-05-25
2015-02-05
National Portrait Gallery (London, UK)
http://www.npg.org.uk
29 June 2015 – 4 October 2015
2015-10-04
2015-06-29
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2015-02-05
John Singer Sargent: Artists, Writers, Actors and Musicians
Loan-out
19 March 2016 – 19 June 2016
2016-06-19
19 March 2016 – 19 June 2016
2016-06-19
2016-03-19
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
2016-03-19
Shakespeare’s Painters
Loan-out
27 September 2016 – 15 January 2017
2017-01-15
27 September 2016 – 15 January 2017
2017-01-15
2016-09-27
Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (Paris, France)
2016-09-27
Oscar Wilde: L'impertinent absolu
Loan-out
8 October 2023 – 7 July 2024
2024-07-07
8 October 2023 – 15 January 2024
2024-01-15
2023-10-08
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
21 February 2024 – 7 July 2024
2024-07-07
2024-02-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2023-10-08
Sargent and Fashion
Exhibition
8 October 2023 – 15 January 2024
2024-01-15
8 October 2023 – 15 January 2024
2024-01-15
2023-10-08
Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA)
http://www.mfa.org
2023-10-08
Sargent and Fashion
Loan-out
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
support: 2210 × 1143 mm
frame: 2500 × 1434 × 105 mm
Presented by Sir Joseph Duveen 1906
<p>The famous actress, Dame Ellen Terry (1847-1928), is shown here in the role  of Lady Macbeth. At the first performance in 1888, Sargent was struck by Terry's appearance and persuaded her to sit  for a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a>. He invented her dramatic pose, which did not occur in the production. Oscar Wilde, who saw  Terry's arrival at Sargent's Chelsea  studio, remarked, 'The street that  on a wet and dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady Macbeth  in full regalia magnificently seated in  a four-wheeler can never again be as other streets: it must always be full  of wonderful possibilities.'</p>
Display caption
2004-08-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>N02053</b> ELLEN TERRY AS LADY MACBETH 1888–9</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Inscr. ‘John S. Sargent’b.l.
<br/>Canvas, 87×45 (221×114·5); painted strips 6 3/4 (16·5), 3 (7·5), 4 (10) and 2 1/4 (6) turned over top, right, left and bottom edges respectively.
<br/>Presented by Sir Joseph Duveen (the elder) 1906.
<br/><i>Coll:</i> Purchased from the artist by Sir Henry Irving; sold Christie's, 16 December 1905 (144), bt. Wyatt for Duveen.
<br/><i>Exh:</i> New Gallery, summer 1889 (110); Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1890 (810); <i>World's Columbian Exhibition</i>, Chicago, 1893 (United States Section); <i>26th Autumn Exhibition</i>, Liverpool, August–December 1896 (891); <i>Dramatic and Musical Art</i>, International Society, 1897 (124).
<br/><i>Lit:</i> <i>Art Journal</i>, 1889, p.191, and 1907, p.79, repr. p.80; William Walton, <i>World's Columbian Exposition, Art and Architecture: The Art</i>, 1893, I, p.16, repr. facing p.5; Downes, 1925, pp.27, 48, 151–2; Charteris, 1927, pp.100–1, 137, 223, 261; E. Craig and Christopher St John (ed.), <i>Ellen Terry's Memoirs</i>, 1933, pp.233–4, 245, 247–8; Mount, 1955, pp.142–7, 413, 432; McKibbin, 1956, p.126; Mount, 1957, pp.121–4, 340.
<br/><i>Repr:</i> Wood, n.d., facing p.22 (in colour); Pousette-Dart, 1924, n.p.; Manson and Meynell, 1927, n.p.</p>
<p>Dame Alice Ellen Terry (1847–1928), actress and third daughter of a well-known family of actors, is shown here in her famous part of Lady Macbeth, which she played in Sir Henry Irving's new production of <i>Macbeth</i> at the Lyceum Theatre, London, with Irving in the title role. Sargent was present at the first performance, 29 December 1888, and was immediately struck by the actress's appearance on the stage. Miss Terry was reluctant to sit for her <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portrait</span></a> until the play's success was more assured, but sittings seem to have begun very soon after the first night, as Sargent, writing to Mrs Gardner 1 January 1889, recounts how bad light impeded progress on the portrait. However, it was finished in time for the summer exhibition at the New Gallery that same year.</p>
<p>The artist has invented a pose which shows Lady Macbeth about to place the royal crown of Duncan on her head. This incident does not occur in the play, nor has a study of the actress's prompt-books for <i>Macbeth</i> provided evidence that it was a dramatic invention on the part of Irving. The sitter's daughter, Miss Edith Craig, thought it a pity that such a misleading pose should have been adopted. (Information supplied by Miss Olive Chaplin, Curator of the Ellen Terry Memorial Museum.) The gold-embroidered green dress worn by Lady Macbeth was designed by Mrs Comyns Carr and made by Mrs Nettleship, and in a long notice of the play printed in <i>The Times</i>, 31 December 1888, a critic wrote of Ellen Terry's unusually tender interpretation of the part that ‘her matted red hair, hanging in long tresses, and her ruddy cheeks mark her as a raw-boned daughter of the North and she wears an appropriate dress of garish green stuff embroidered with gold. There is nothing of the martial or adventurous spirit in her <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> to bring her into harmony with her barbarous surroundings’ (quoted by W. Moelwyn Merchant, <i>Shakespeare and the Artist</i>, 1959, p.139).</p>
<p>The Tate portrait, which Ellen Terry described in her <i>Memoirs</i> as the sensation of the year (1889), was bought by Irving for the Beefsteak Room of the Lyceum Theatre, where it hung in an alcove. Before the picture was finished Burne-Jones, who greatly admired the work, suggested one or two alterations in the colouring, which Sargent immediately adopted (<i>Ellen Terry's Memoirs</i>, 1933, pp.234, 245).</p>
<p>There is a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/m/monochrome" title="Glossary definition for 'Monochrome'"><span>grisaille</span></a> sketch in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG2273, 33 1/2×28 in.) showing Lady Macbeth at the entrance to the Keep, ready to greet King Duncan. A <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/g/graphite" title="Glossary definition for 'Graphite'"><span>pencil</span></a> sketch (21 1/2×16 1/2 in.), done in 1906 for Ellen Terry's Jubilee Programme, belongs to the Ellen Terry Memorial Museum, Smallhythe, Kent.</p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, <i>The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture</i>, London 1964, II
<br/>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: postures and motions actor adults arm / arms raised arts and entertainment body characters crown hair individuals: female Lady Macbeth literature and fiction ‘Macbeth’ named individuals objects people portraits religious and ceremonial Shakespeare standing Terry, Ellen woman work and occupations