Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

A gloomy, stone fortress-like background.

A red-haired woman holds a crown aloft with both hands.

The green dress she wears, exuding an otherworldly aura, cascades down to her feet.

The climax of Shakespeare's tragedy, Macbeth.

It appears as if a famous scene from the play, where Lady Macbeth, filled with madness and ambition, crowns herself, has been directly transferred onto the canvas.

However, this is not actually a specific scene from the play.

It is an imagined pose, conceived by Sargent himself.

December 29, 1888.

At the Lyceum Theatre in London, a new production of Macbeth premiered.

Sargent, who attended the opening night, was overwhelmed by the eerie beauty of Ellen Terry's portrayal of Lady Macbeth.

Almost immediately after the premiere, he decided to paint her portrait.

This overwhelming presence is created by the costume she wears.

It was designed by Alice Comyns Carr.

It was woven from soft green wool and blue tinsel threads.

Over 1,000 real beetle wings were hand-stitched onto its surface.

A bewitching shimmer, like snake scales.

The director, Henry Irving, demanded of Terry:

That she wear a corset, a norm for Victorian ladies.

She flatly refused.

What Terry and Carr chose was the liberation of the natural body, free from corsets.

The playwright Oscar Wilde witnessed an incredible sight on Tite Street in London.

On a dreary, rainy morning,

Terry, in full makeup and the complete Lady Macbeth costume, was riding in a hansom cab on her way to Sargent's studio.

Wilde was captivated.

“This street, which has given me the vision of Lady Macbeth in full regalia riding majestically in a hansom cab, will never again be like any other dull street.”

He also described the costume's unreal opulence thus:

“She herself seems to have done all her shopping in the far-off Byzantine Empire.”