Art Institute of Chicago

Study for Inquisition, Illustration to Columbiad

Henry Fuseli

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

Culture

England

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

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 Fuseli’s painted sketch (a study for an unpublished engraving) illustrates lines from the early American poet Joel Barlow’s Columbiad (published 1807), an epic account in verse of the founding of the United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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