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Arrest for witchcraft

Arrest for witchcraft
 1866

Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
97.8 × 151.7 cm
Inscription
inscribed in brown paint l.l.: J. Pettie / 1866
Accession Number
p.305.6-1
Department
International Painting
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Purchased, 1876
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Gallery location
19th Century European Paintings Gallery
Level 2, NGV International
About this work

This picture ensured Pettie’s election to Associate of the Royal Academy (1866). It was hung in the most advantageous position in the center room of the RA’s exhibition of 1865. The scene is a typical English town at the height of the brutal witch-hunts of the mid seventeenth-century as an old widow who is presumed to be a witch is in the custody of two well armed officials and a soldier carrying a gun. Pettie has heightened the melodrama by exacerbating the contrast between the helpless and crumpled crone and the frenzied mob literally screaming for her blood.

Subjects (general)
History and Legend Human Figures Law, Civics and Protest
Subjects (specific)
accusing arrests (legal events) elderly prisoners scenes (depictions) spectators (event observers) witchcraft women (female humans)
Provenance
Exhibited Royal Academy, London, 1866, no. 179; collection of Mrs Tanton, until 1874; sale, Christie’s, London, 14 March 1874, lot 48; from where purchased by Agnew's (dealer), London, 14 March 1874, stock no. 8396[1]; from where purchased by Alfred Taddy Thomson, London, for the National Gallery of Victoria, 29 June 1876.

[1] See Agnew’s Picture Stockbook 1871–74, NGA27/1/1/4, pp. 266-67, Thomas Agnew & Sons archive, National Gallery Research Centre, London, https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/research/research-centre/agnews-stock-books/reference-nga27114-1871-74

Exhibited Royal Academy, London, 1866, no. 179


Frame
Original, by William Spencer, London