Wierd-sisters [sic], minister's of darkness, minions of the moon : "They should be women! and yet their beards forbid us to interpret, that they are so."

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James Gillray
1756-1815
Wierd-sisters [sic], minister's of darkness, minions of the moon : "They should be women! and yet their beards forbid us to interpret, that they are so."
aquatint with etching, hand-colored
image: 385 x 425 mm; sheet: 295 x 437 mm
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1900.
Peel 2757
Published: 
[London] : Pubd. Decr. 23d, 1791, by H. Humphrey, No. 18 Old Bond Street, [23 December 1791]
Notes: 

Title etched below image.
Trimmed to within plate mark.
Printmaker from British Museum catalogue.
Dedication etched above image: To H. Fuzelli Esqr. this attempt in the caricatura-sublime, is respectfully dedicated.

Summary: 

A burlesque of Fuseli's well-known picture illustrating "Macbeth", i. 3. The three witches are Dundas, Pitt, and Thurlow, in profile to the right instead of to the left. Fuseli's drapery is replaced by clouds, and the three gaze with reflective and apprehensive intensity at the moon (right): the Queen's smiling profile in a brightly lit crescent faces them, enclosing the old moon, the darkened head of the King (eclipsed), with closed eyes in profile to the right. Each witch presses the fingers of his left hand (drawn with much expressiveness) to his lips ( - "each at once her choppy finger laying upon her skinny lips"); the outstretched left arm of Fuseli's picture is absent: they appear to be seeking knowledge of the future from the moon, not foretelling it.

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