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The Three Witches

ClassificationsPAINTINGS

Date2020

Mediumoil on linen

Dimensionscanvas: 35 3/4 × 40 3/4 × 1 in. (90.8 × 103.5 × 2.5 cm.)

Description(unframed)

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of a private collector

Status

Not on view

Label TextJill Mulleady's paintings present unsettling scenes that oscillate between beautiful and horrifying, quiet and violent. Her compositions are rich with allegorical symbols and art historical references that conflate eras. Even when depicting a particular location, they feel liminial and otherworldly. Mulleady often intervenes in the spaces in which her paintings are installed, staging them alongside readymades and architectural interventions. This strategy turns the gallery space into a kind of proscenium, heightening the theatricality of viewing.

Originally displayed in the American Art galleries at The Huntington in the exhibition "Made in LA 2020: a version," this painting reproduces a historical work in The Huntington's collection, Henry Fuseli's The Three Witches (ca. 1785). Working off of a photograph the artist took on a visit to The Huntington's European galleries, Mulleady has added subtle details, including the glare of a flash bulb. The original painting depicts a pivotal moment in Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth (act 1, scene 3), when the protagonist encounters a demonic trio of witches, who foretell his fate. The text originally engraved in the frame is replicated here in trompe l'oeil, quoting in ancient Greek the playwight Aeschylus: "Not women, but Gorgons I call them," a reference to Medusa and her sisters, whose terrifying gazes turned men to stone.

Object number2022.21