Examination of a Witch Scarf

Get conversations started with this PEM-exclusive cotton scarf that features details from the painting Examination of a Witch, on view in our witch trials exhibition. Wash-friendly and easy to style, this scarf has hand-finished fringes on both ends.

About the Original Work:

Tompkins Harrison Matteson’s painting has long been associated with the Salem witch trials, however it actually depicts a prior related event in Boston.  Matteson sets the dramatic scene in a public tavern, the kind of locale where many of the initial examinations conducted in Salem Village and Salem took place. The details he renders are reminiscent of the 17th-century interiors in Dutch genre paintings. He captures the climactic moment when a female examiner points out a witch’s mark on Mary Fisher’s body. 

Tompkins Harrison Matteson
Examination of a Witch, 1853
Oil on canvas
38 1/2 x 54 inches (97.79 x 137.16 cm)
Peabody Essex Museum, Museum purchase, 1978
Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum.

DETAILS

100% Natural Cotton

Sewn edges with hand-finished fringe

Dimensions: 28" X 78 inches

Care: Cold wash; hang to dry.