- 95
Johann Heinrich Füssli Zurich 1741- 1825 London
Description
- Johann Heinrich Füssli
- oedipus announcing his death
dated and inscribed with a description of the scene in brown ink on two small pieces of paper, added lower left and right: Lond. Jun. 83.;
ktuphse men Zeus cqonios, ai de parqenoi/righsan ws hkousan, es de gounata/tros pesousai, klaion----/Oidip. epi Kol. [Zeus of the Underworld sent forth his thunder-bolt, and the maidens shuddered as they heard. They fell weeping at their father's knees, and crying.]- pen and brown ink and wash with touches red chalk, grey wash, and white heightening
Provenance
Anton Lock, according to inscription, verso;
Private collection, USA
Catalogue Note
This study is preparatory for Füssli's painting of 1784 (fig.1), in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (see G. Schiff, Johann Heinrich Füssli 1741-1825, Zürich 1973, p. 487, cat. no. 712, reproduced pp.134-5). The scene illustrates lines 1606-8 of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, which are inscribed, in Greek, at the lower right of the sheet. We see the aged, blind Oedipus, seated in the sacred grove of the Eumenides, in the village of Colonus. A terrible thunder-storm rages, which Oedipus interprets as a sign from Zeus of his fate. Füssli depicts the moment at which the former king tells his daughters Antigone (seated to his right) and Ismene of his impending death. The composition was produced as a mezzotint in 1785 by J.R. Smith (see Schiff, 1973, loc.cit.).