Macbeth Consulting the Witches

Eugène Delacroix

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of Delacroix's most striking prints, "Macbeth Consulting the Witches" owes its dynamic technique to the lithographs of Goya, whose monumental bullfight scenes had just been published in Bordeaux. Datable to 1825, this is probably Delacroix's first important work inspired by Shakespeare. An impression hand-colored in oils by the artist exists, suggesting that he was considering a related painting. The subject occurs in act 4, scene 1, where Macbeth meets the three witches for a second time to ask them about his future.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art