Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

Posted by on Apr 15, 2014

“More like a mermaid than a queen”

 


The last time I saw John Singer Sargent’s great painting of Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, it occupied — or maybe possessed — an entire room in the Tate Britain, a high-ceilinged, round vestibule which gave Lady M the appearance of working magic alone in some high, bright tower. At least, that’s how it seems in my memory.

 “I’d always thought she looked more like a mermaid than a queen.”

—Kate Stanley, in Haunt Me Still

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, by John Singer Sargent (1889)
Tate Britain, London

 

Dressed in Wings

 

In Sargent’s painting, Terry wears the costume she wore for her famous incarnation of the Scottish Queen, which opened at London’s Lyceum Theatre in December, 1888. Made from a thousand glimmering beetle wings, it’s a gown befitting a sorceress. It’s on display, newly restored, at her country cottage in Kent, Smallhythe Place. If that’s too far to go, you can find more pictures of the dress, plus some detailed discussion of its making at Glass of Fashion.
 


 

Turning to sit, I saw on a hook by the door a shimmering length of blue silk, scaled like dragon. Knife in hand, I stared at it as if at a ghost.

 

“Ellen Terry’s Lady M costume,” said Lady Nairn with some amusement. “Or an approximation thereof. Made of silk embroidered with beetle wings. How perfect is that, for a queen who was a witch in all but name? Though perhaps the beetles would disagree.”

 

Haunt Me Still

 
 
More Inspiration and Illustrations for Haunt Me Still
 

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