Title

Scene from "Macbeth", at the Princess' Theatre, 1858. Creator: Smyth.

Caption

Scene from "Macbeth", at the Princess' Theatre, 1858. London stage production, showing '...the Witch-Cauldron Scene...in the superb revival of "Macbeth," the most powerful of the reproductions of Mr. Charles Kean this season...He is at pains to show, in his notes to the play, the elements and circumstances that lend their aid in composing the infernal ceremonies that are so theatrically effective. He dwells much upon the propriety of the ingredients that are thrown into "the charmed pot" to boil and bubble...An air of mystery, solemnity, and grandeur is cast around the celebration of [the Weird Sisters'] magic rites...They are...the Oracles of Fate; they proclaim the destinies of kings and kingdoms; and, labouring in the cause of the demon whom they serve, their object is no less than the alienation from God of a soul...It is noticeable that Macbeth addresses them as "you secret, black, and midnight hags;"...They are creatures of the night; they are powers of darkness...They are foul anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.

Credit line

Photo12/Heritage Images/The Print Collector

Reference

HRM23A82_288

Model release

NA

Property release

NA

License type

Rights managed

Available size

25,4Mb (3,0Mb) / 12,5in x 7,9in / 3737 x 2380 (300dpi)

Keywords

female women woman people male man men arts cave vision country play entertainment monarch art guy smoke pot pots cooking cookery fire British geography color stage king dramatic Scotland superstition royal drama caves location SCOTTISH century magic gesturing Britain newspapers press print royalty concept actors acting witch witches superstitious apparition scary B&W hand gesture actor special effects spell spells witchcraft engraved engraving actress Colour 19th century Thespian black & white black and white B W actresses white and black on stage nineteenth century Scots The Print Collector cauldron cooking pot geographical feature Illustrated London News Macbeth Shakespearean Shakespearian sovereign ILN Charles newspaper William Shakespeare Shakespeare William Charles John Smyth Kean Shakspeare 19th-century pipkin Charles Kean Charles John Kean