This fluently-executed design probably shows the three witches from Shakespeare’s Mabceth (1606), clustered together in wicked conspiracy. John Runciman made a profound impression on his contemporaries during his short life. With his brother Alexander, he was among the first artists to treat Shakespeare as the source of heroic subjects, presenting scenes and characters freed from the trappings of stage presentations.

The tragic Scottish king Macbeth is subjected to the alarming sight of the three witches casting the spells that will conjure prophetic visions. The drawing seems to compress the images drawn by the famous spell of the three witches - ‘Double double toil and trouble’ – with the culminating dance around the cauldron: ‘Like elves and fairies in a ring’.

In the gloomth of a primitive cave, a witch casts a mysterious spell while her young female companion reels back in horror. Although he died young, Mortimer’s art exerted an important influence in the late eighteenth century. Pictures like this seemed to combine sensational effects with a noble pictorial style.

This scene of bleak supernatural warning illustrates the Greek dramatist Aeschylus’s play The Persians. The defeated Persians suffer at the hands of the conquering Greeks. The lamenting Chorus is suddenly interrupted by the ghost of the former Persian king, Darius, who rises from the grave to tell his people that they can no longer fight the enemy.

A scene from the Biblical book of Samuel. The armies of the Philistines are gathering to attack Israel; the prophet Samuel is dead, and Saul has driven out ‘those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards’. But, feeling abandoned by God, Saul goes in disguise to hypocritically seek advice from a witch. In Fuseli’s drawing, Saul collapses dramatically at the conjured appearance of the ghost of Samuel.

The ghost of the prophet Samuel is being conjured by the Witch of Endor, at the instruction of Saul, King of Israel. In the past, this supernatural theme had embarrassed Protestant commentators in Britain. They were generally sceptical about the possibility of the paranormal. But the story proved attractive for artists looking for Gothic subject-matter.

The subject is from the Greek tragedy The Furies by Aeschylus. The ghost of the wicked Clytemnstra arouses the demonic ‘Furies’ to pursue her murderer, Orestes. Downman’s picture is crowded with grotesque, almost caricatured, detail. This work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1782. A critic said it was ‘proof how artists sometimes lose themselves, and mistake their talents’.

Here, Gillray uses Fuseli’s painting The Weird Sisters as the basis of a political satire. The home secretary Lord Dundas, William Pitt the prime minister and Lord Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor, are cast as Fuseli’s witches. The moon is made up of the distinctive profiles of George III and Queen Charlotte. The print satirises the uneasy and unnatural alliance of these politicians, and the reputed lunacy of George.

The subject is taken from the Greek tragedy, The Furies, by Aescyhlus. The ghost of the evil murderess Clytemnestra is rousing evil spirits, who will pursue her murderer Orestes. This is a design from the series of line illustrations that Flaxman created in 1794 for Georgiana, Countess Spencer. These were highly admired for their simplicity, which seemed to evoke the spirit of the classical past.

Fuseli shows a grotesque witch digging up a Mandrake root. According to legend, the Mandrake had mystic powers; it would scream or send out noxious fumes on being dug up. When this painting was exhibited in 1785, a critic wrote: ‘We have frequently had occasion to admire the enthusiasm and eccentricity of this artist’s imagination; but here it is genius run mad.’ He noted how odd it was that the witch’s daughter was so fashionably dressed.

This print satirizes the print publisher John Boydell (1719-1804), and his Shakespeare Gallery. The Gallery showed paintings commissioned from British artists. It was meant to be a great patriotic effort, but Gillray suggests that Boydell’s motives were mercenary. The figures appearing in the smoke are comical versions of characters from the paintings. You can find several of these figures in paintings in this and the following room.

This is a scene of diabolical conjuration from Shakespeare’s 2 Henry VI (1590-1), Act 1. Here, Bolingbroke, the sorcerer, and the priest Southwell, meet with Margery Jourdain to raise the fiend and question him about the future.

In a moonlit scene at the castle of Elsinor, Hamlet breaks from his friend Horatio’s hold and thrusts himself in the direction of the mysterious apparition of his dead father. This engraving reproduces a large painting which is now lost, created by Fuseli for the Shakespeare Gallery. It was one of the painter’s most admired images.

A country parson tries to exorcise a comically skinny ghost. One of the lumpen peasants accompanying him urges him on. The power of exorcism (‘laying’) was strongly associated with Catholicism, rather than the supposedly more rational Anglican church. It was viewed as outlandish and superstitious.

A gigantic spectre of the most traditional sort is shown looming over a simplelooking gravedigger in a country churchyard. This is one of a group of supernatural designs by Woodward. Some of these were engraved by the caricaturist Richard Newton. They present a broad comic vision, playing on stereotypes relating to the superstitious nature of simple country people.

A bizarre-looking supernatural creature alarms a gravedigger, who drops his spade in surprise. Woodward’s watercolour makes the most of this opportunity for physical comedy. The spectre is a crazy, halfanimal, half-human creature, most resembling a giant puppy with diminutive wings. The gravedigger is a stocky rural type.

A group of drunken men in naval uniforms are startled by the appearance of an armoured ghost, who joins them for a drink! This caricature plays on the idea that supernatural apparitions were only the result of drunkenness or gluttony. The ghost has a comically material appearance, derived from the heroic vision of the supernatural apparent in Fuseli’s famous image of old Hamlet’s ghost (recorded in an engraving by Robert Thew, shown in this room).

A witch, stripped to the waist, is accompanied by two youthful figures, apparently a boy and a girl. Above their heads we can see the silhouette of a bat in the gloomth, and a weird feline-faced bat-winged thing. Among the rocks to the left, are a wide-eyed owl, a newt or toad, and an ass. The subject of this print has been much discussed. It was traditionally called ‘Hecate’.

This is an attack on the politician Charles James Fox (1749-1806) for his support of Irish independence. He is assailed by a group of headless ghosts, fronted by the spectre of Lord Edward Fitzgerald. The French had landed in Ireland in August 1798, and a bloody rebellion had followed. St Ann’s Hill in London was Fox’s home, and was identified as the source of anti-government feeling.

Pen and black ink, and grey wash, with watercolour on paper Shakespeare’s Richard III is assailed by the ghosts of the many victims of his plotting and violence. To the left, the ghost of Henry VI leads one group of spectres; to the right Lady Anne, the dead wife of Richard, leads another. The spirits of the two murdered princes, the sons of Edward IV, are shown between the legs of King Richard.

This represents Hamlet meeting the ghost of his father, in the scene of Shakespeare’s play where the apparition tells his son the gloomy truth about the incestuous and horrid plots surrounding him. While Blake painted extended series of illustrations of Dante and Milton, he represented subjects from Shakespeare infrequently. When he did, his designs, as here, tended to take on a relatively conventional format.

The three witches from Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) are shown wearing the features of contemporary opposition politicians, including Charles James Fox. The print criticises the Peace of Amiens made with France in 1802, which was perceived as sacrificing Britain’s interests. The feigned oval suggests that the whole scene may be a phantasmagorical projection of the type popular at this time.

A witch is shown digging up a Mandrake root, while a young female companion collapses in horror. According to myth, the humanshaped root would shriek or give off a deadly gas on being dug up. Although this composition dates to around 1812, it is closely based on an oil painting first exhibited by Fuseli in 1785. You can see this picture nearby.

This is one of a pair of drawings that was the basis of etched prints created by Fuseli around 1812. They both represent a haggardly witch digging up the magical Mandrake plant. In this design, the Mandrake is shown as a tiny humanoid creature. The root was long associated with witchcraft, and was thought to have powerful aphrodisiac or poisonous effects.