Henry Fuseli
Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825
Study for Inquisition, Illustration to Columbiad
INV-7577
Henry Fuseli
Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825c. 1806
Study for Inquisition, Illustration to Columbiad
Henry Fuseli Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825 →oil on paperpaper
Date
c. 1806
Medium
Oil paint, over touches of graphite, on cream wove paper, laid down on stipple etching, etching, and aquatint in black on cream wove paper
Dimensions
52.9 × 44.6 cm (20 7/8 × 17 9/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
The Spanish Inquisition (symbolizing religious intolerance) is personified as a sinister-looking woman carrying a sword and holding a flaming vessel. She stands triumphantly atop the prone body of Truth. Peering out from behind her is a Dominican friar, an instrument of her authority.
Fuseli’s painted sketch (a study for an unpublished engraving) illustrates lines from the early American poet Joel Barlow’s Columbiad (published 1807), an epic account in verse of the founding of the United States. Barlow had commissioned illustrations from Fuseli, which were ultimately rejected. Notably, Fuseli painted this study directly on a reproductive engraving of one of his own paintings, which was presumably close at hand.
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