| Lady Macbeth | |
|---|---|
 Detail of the statue | |
| Artist | Elisabet Ney |
| Year | 1905 (1905) |
| Medium | Marble |
| Subject | Lady Macbeth |
| Dimensions | 187.2 cm × 65.4 cm × 75.0 cm (73.75 in × 25.75 in × 29.5 in)[1] |
| Location | Smithsonian American Art Museum,Washington, D.C., United States |
| Accession | 1998.79 |
Lady Macbeth is a statue of theShakespearean characterLady Macbeth byGerman American sculptorElisabet Ney. The sculpture is a life-size full-length female figure rendered inmarble. Completed in 1905,Lady Macbeth is one of Ney's last works and was regarded by the artist as her masterpiece.[2]: 219 It is housed inWashington, D.C., in the Luce Foundation Center for American Art at theSmithsonian American Art Museum, which acquired the piece in 1998.[1]
Ney began sculptingLady Macbeth in 1903, shortly after she completed the design ofher memorial statue ofAlbert Sidney Johnston.[3]: 108, 118–119 Unlike Ney's other major contemporary works, the statue was not made in response to any commission or for any particular buyer. She developed the piece in her studio inAustin, Texas,Formosa (now theElisabet Ney Museum), where theplaster model is still on display.[4] The piece was cut inmarble in Italy beginning in 1903, alongside second copies of Ney's portraits ofSam Houston andStephen F. Austin for submission to theNational Statuary Hall Collection.[3]: 109 Lady Macbeth was completed in 1905, two years before Ney's death;[1] it proved to be her last major work.[5][2]: 220
The sculpture interprets thesleepwalking scene in act 5, scene 1 of Shakespeare's tragedyMacbeth.Lady Macbeth is depictedsleepwalking barefoot in a flowingnightgown, her eyes half closed, with her left arm reaching across her body to clutch her right hand. Her face is uplifted and turned away from her clenched hands; her facial expression is pained, and her body is twisted by the pose of the head and arms.[1]
The piece stands out among Ney's works, most of which were portraits of living persons or historical figures; she produced few other works on fictitious or allegorical subjects.[6]: 29 With its exploration of subjective emotion, this work also represents a shift towardromanticism and away from theneoclassical sculpture more characteristic of Ney's work generally.[2]: 219–220
Lady Macbeth has been understood both as a portrayal of a fictional character and as aself-portrait;[1] the figure's face resembles the artist's own, and Ney wrote in 1903 that the piece was a result and expression of her own feelings of "cruel disappointment" in life.[6]: 17 The statue's evocation of grief has been interpreted as a reference to a frustrated romance earlier in Ney's life (perhaps with KingLudwig II of Bavaria),[7] or to her participation in political intrigues in 1860s Germany,[2]: 212 as well as to her estrangement from her son.[1]
Media related toLady Macbeth (Ney) at Wikimedia Commons