Henry Fuseli, R.A.

Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A. (L. 2445);
Harriet Jane Moore;
by descent to Mrs Anne Simpson;
Mrs M.C. Heath, by 1951;
Anthony Heath, by 1973;
his sale, London, Christie's, 6 March 1973, lot 19;
The British Rail Pension Fund;
their sale, London, Sotheby’s, 10 March 1988, lot 32

N. Powell, The Drawings of Henry Fuseli, London 1951, p. 36, no. 7
F. Antal, Fuseli Studies, London 1956, p. 51 & 52, fig. 24a
G. Schiff, Johann Heinrich Füssli 1741-1825, Munich 1973, p. 472, no. 609

This powerful drawing remains in good condition. The washes have not faded and the sheet itself remains close to its orginal colour. There are some minor foxmarks, which are lagely only visible from the verso. This work is not laid down and is window mounted.
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Henry Fuseli drew the present work between 1770 and 1779, while living in Italy. He had been encouraged to travel there by Reynolds and financial assistance from the banker Thomas Coutts (1735-1822) made the idea a reality.

Upon his arrival in Rome he quickly fell under the combined influences of the antique, mannerism and Michelangelo and his study of these theories and the works of art that reflected them was to prove crucial to his artistic development.

The present work is an excellent example of the type of drawing Fuseli produced at this time. The nude figure seems to derive from a number of separate sources. The Lansdowne Hermes, a Roman marble that had been excavated at Hadrian’s Villa in 1769,¹ the figure of Klytius on the Meidias Vase² and Michelangelo’s figure of an ancestor in the Sistine Chapel, each depict a stooped figure with a raised leg. However, rather than laboriously copying these works, Fuseli merely makes reference to them and with a combination of elongated lines, dramatic light and shade and a striking composition, he has created an image of great power, intensity and monumentality.

It was in Rome that Fuseli's reputation grew rapidly and he was soon acknowledged as a leading member of a group of resident British artists which included, amongst others, Thomas Banks (1735-1805), James Barry (1741-1806), James Northcote (1746-1831) and George Romney (1734-1802). Thomas Banks ranked Fuseli as ‘the greatest figure…. among the students of painting,’³ while in 1773 the theologian Johann Casper Lavater (1741-1801) described his as ‘one of the greatest imaginations in Rome…everything in extremes…hurricane and tempest.’⁴

The present work was once owned by Sir Thomas Lawrence, president of the Royal Academy and also amongst the greatest collectors of drawings of his age. It was then included in an album complied by Harriet Jane Moore, daughter of James Carrick-Moore, and the niece of General Sir John Moore. The album contained two further drawings by Fuseli and was disassembled for Anthony Heath’s sale at Christie’s in 1973.

1. Acquired by Lord Shelbourne now in the Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum, Copenhagen
2. Formerly in the collection of Sir William Hamilton in Naples, now in the British Museum
3. Letter to Nathaniel Smith, 31 July 1773, in C.F. Bel, Annals of Thomas Banks, Cambridge 1938, p. 16
4. Ed. W. Muschg, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Base, 1942, p. 168