Falstaff at Herne's Oak (Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 5, Scene 5)
Medium
Stipple engraving and etching
Dimensions
Plate: 16 5/16 × 19 1/8 in. (41.4 × 48.5 cm) Sheet: 17 1/8 × 21 7/16 in. (43.5 × 54.5 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2018
Accession Number
2018.131
Tags
Art Historical Context
This 1793 stipple engraving and etching captures a lively moment from Act 5, 5 of Shakespeare’s *The Merry Wives of Windsor*. In the scene, the roguish Sir John Falstaff, disguised with a buck’s head, waits at Herne’s Oak for what he believes will be a romantic rendezvous, only to be confronted by the play’s clever women and a band of disguised figures who expose and humiliate him. The print reflects the late eighteenth-century enthusiasm for Shakespearean subjects, when publishers such as Thomas Macklin commissioned illustrated editions and standalone prints to bring the Bard’s comedies to a ...
About the Artist
Thomas Macklin|Henry William Bunbury|Princess Frederica Charlotte of Prussia|William Shakespeare|Michele Beneditti (Italian|British|British) · 1728 |1751 |1752 –1815 |1801 |1800
Italian, Florence 1728–1815 Lisbon|British, London 1751–1801 London|British, 1752/53–1800 London