Footnotes

Provenance
Commissioned by Louis Victor Flatou.
His sale, 23 June 1861, lot 54: 'An Old Woman accused of having bewitched a Peasant Girl, W. P. Frith, R.A., a small replica of the large picture.' Sold for 440 gns. to Pearce.
Christie's, London, 21 May 1870, sale of Mr E Bullock: 'Trial for Witchcraft, Small'. Sold for £178 10s to Thompson.
With Thos. Agnew, acquired on 16 June 1888.
Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 8 May 1914, lot 132: 'Frith, W. P., R.A., 1861, Witchcraft, panel—12 ¾ x 21 ¾'. Sold for £47 5s to Sampson.
With H. & P. De Casseres, Harrogate.
Private collection, UK.

An old woman accused of having bewitched a peasant girl was Frith's major picture of 1848. The painting, exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition (no. 395) was greatly admired and had already been sold to the major collector Thomas Miller of Preston for 500 guineas. The work was exhibited at the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857, where it was photographed as one of the highlights for the catalogue.

The painting depicts at its centre, a young woman, pale and lovesick for the falconer in the left of the picture. An old woman is accused of being a witch and causing her sickness, a black cat being held aloft in evidence. As Frith described the scene:

'I placed a lovelorn damsel, bewitched, indeed, by a handsome young forester in Lincoln green, instead of by a frightened old woman who is vehemently accused by the mother of the girl of having caused the change in her daughter's health and spirits, so alarming to her friends, notably to her old grandfather, to whom she clings for protection...'¹

Set in the time of James I, Frith used Knole Hall as the background for the action. Critically acclaimed, Frith painted two smaller replicas of the painting for an eager market, the first in 1848, and the present version in 1861, through a commission from the renowned art dealer Louis Victor Flatow, who had also commissioned Frith to paint his great Railway Station, which he was working on at the time.

We are grateful to Mark Bills for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.

¹William Powell Frith, My Autobiography and Reminiscences, in two volumes, London 1887, volume I, p.155.