Magnet Examination of a Witch

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.