''Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...

by John Singer Sargent now in

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

. Painted in 1889, it depicts actress

Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry, (27 February 184721 July 1928), was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and tour ...

in a famous performance as Lady Macbeth in

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

's tragedy '' Macbeth'', wearing a green dress decorated with iridescent beetle wings. The play was produced by

Henry Irving Sir Henry Irving (6 February 1838 – 13 October 1905), christened John Henry Brodribb, sometimes known as J. H. Irving, was an English stage actor in the Victorian era, known as an actor-manager because he took complete responsibility ( ...

at the Lyceum Theatre, London, with Irving also playing Macbeth opposite Terry. Sargent attended the opening night on 29 December 1888 and was inspired to paint Terry's portrait almost immediately.

Dress

Terry's spectacular gown was designed by

Alice Comyns Carr Alice Vansittart Comyns Carr (née Strettell; 1850–1927), was a British costume designer whose work is associated with the Aesthetic dress movement. Family Alice Vansittart Strettell (referred to in succeeding sections as "Carr") was a daug ...

(1850–1927) and made in crochet by Ada Nettleship, using a soft green wool and blue tinsel yarn from Bohemia to create an effect similar to

chain mail Chain mail (properly called mail or maille but usually called chain mail or chainmail) is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. It was in common military use between the 3rd century BC and ...

. It was embroidered with gold and decorated with 1,000 iridescent wing cases from the green jewel beetle, '' Sternocera aequisignata''. The dress has a narrow border of Celtic designs worked out in red and white stones, is hemmed on all the edges, and girt with a gold belt. The design was inspired by a dress worn by

Lady Randolph Churchill Jennie Spencer-Churchill (; 9 January 1854 – 29 June 1921), known as Lady Randolph Churchill, was an American-born British socialite, the wife of Lord Randolph Churchill, and the mother of British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill. Early ...

that was also trimmed with green beetle wing cases . It was designed to "look as much like soft chain armour... and yet have something that would give the appearance of the scales of a serpent".The actor and the maker: Ellen Terry and Alice Comyns-Carr
Victoria & Albert Museum; attributed to Mrs. J. Comyns Carr's 'Reminiscences'. London: Hutchinson, 1926. Terry wrote to her daughter Edith Craig, "I wish you could see my dresses. They are superb, especially the first one: green beetles on it, and such a cloak! The photographs give no idea of it at all, for it is in colour that it is so splendid. The dark red hair is fine. The whole thing is Rossetti—rich stained-glass effects." Oscar Wilde quipped that "Lady Macbeth seems to be an economical housekeeper and evidently patronises local industries for her husband's clothes and servant's liveries, but she takes care to do all her own shopping in Byzantium." The play was very successful, running for more than six months to packed houses. The costume was reused on many later tours, crossing the Atlantic to visit North America at least twice.Maev Kennedy
Ellen Terry's beetlewing gown back in limelight after £110,000 restoration
''The Guardian'', 11 March 2011 The dress was restored in a two-year project that began in 2009 when £50,000 had been raised to pay for the work. In 2011, after 1,300 hours of conservation work and a cost of £110,000, it was placed on display in Ellen Terry's former home,

Smallhythe Place Smallhythe Place in Small Hythe, near Tenterden in Kent, is a half-timbered house built in the late 15th or early 16th century and since 1947 cared for by the National Trust. The house was originally called 'Port House' and before the River ...

, near

Tenterden Tenterden is a town in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. It stands on the edge of the remnant forest the Weald, overlooking the valley of the River Rother. It was a member of the Cinque Ports Confederation. Its riverside today is not ...

in Kent. The archaeology of a dress
29 March 2011 It has been described by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

as "one of the most iconic and celebrated theatre costumes of the time".Famous 'Beetle Wing' dress of Victorian actress Ellen Terry returns to her home
National Trust

Painting

The painting depicts Terry standing erect, white faced, holding

King Duncan King Duncan is a fictional character in Shakespeare's ''Macbeth.'' He is the father of two youthful sons ( Malcolm and Donalbain), and the victim of a well-plotted regicide in a power grab by his trusted captain Macbeth. The origin of the c ...

's crown above her head, although the pose depicted did not feature in Irving's production. Long plaits of red hair bound with gold hang down to Terry's knees, over a heather-coloured velvet cloak embroidered with red animals (possibly griffins, or Scottish lions). The canvas measures high by wide, with a heavy gold frame with Celtic motifs, probably designed by Sargent and made by Harold Roller. It was first exhibited at the summer exhibition at the New Gallery in 1889. In her memoirs, Terry called the painting the sensation of the year for 1889. It was next displayed at the

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA; ; en, National Society of Fine Arts) was the term under which two groups of French artists united, the first for some exhibitions in the early 1860s, the second since 1890 for annual exhibitions. 1862 Es ...

in Paris in 1890, the World's Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893, and the 26th Autumn Exhibition in Liverpool in 1896. Irving bought the painting from Sargent for display in the Beefsteak Room at the Lyceum Theatre. After Irving's death in October 1905, the painting was sold at Christie's on 16 December 1905, and bought by an agent for Sir Joseph Joel Duveen, who donated it to the

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

in 1906.Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
1889, Tate Gallery The National Portrait Gallery holds a contemporaneous photograph of Ellen Terry wearing the dress. It also holds a

grisaille Grisaille ( or ; french: grisaille, lit=greyed , from ''gris'' 'grey') is a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many g ...

oil sketch made by Sargent for Terry's golden jubilee programme in 1906, depicting Terry as Lady Macbeth standing at the entrance to a castle with robed attendants, based on an earlier colour drawing held at Smallhythe Place.Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, John Singer Sargent, NTPL 12698
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Gallery

File:Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth with frame.jpg, Painting at Tate Britain, including heavy gold frame with Celtic motifs File:Dame (Alice) Ellen Terry by John Singer Sargent.jpg, Drawing by Sargent for Terry's golden jubilee programme, 1906

References

{{Macbeth 1889 paintings Collection of the Tate galleries Paintings by John Singer Sargent Works based on Macbeth Paintings based on works by William Shakespeare 19th-century portraits Portraits of women Portraits of actors Cultural depictions of British women