About This Artwork

Henry Fuseli
British, 1741-1825

Sketch for "Oath on the Rütli," Female Figure (verso), 1779/81; 1785/90 (verso)

Oil on canvas
stretcher: 29 15/16 x 26 9/16 in. (76 x 67.5 cm); irregular edges of the original canvas: 28 5/8 x 22 3/4 in. (72.7 x 57.8 cm); edges of the Oath on the Rütli image: 25 5/8 x 21 3/8 in. (65.1 x 54.3 cm)
Anonymous gift, 1980.170

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Bernisches Historisches Museum and Kunstmuseum Bern, "Zeichen der Freiheit: Das Bild der Republik in der Kunst des 16. bis 20. Jahrhunderts," 1991, no. 4.

Publication History

Frederick N. Bohrer, "Public Virtue and Private Terror: A Two-Sided Oil Sketch by Henry Fuseli," Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 53 (1990), pp. 89–106 (ills.).

Malcolm Warner in Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1996), pp. 220–26 (ill.).

Fred Licht, Simona Tosini Pizzetti, and David H. Weinglass, Füssli pittore di Shakespeare: Pittura e teatro, exh. cat., Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Parma, 1997, no. 7 (not exhibited).

Ownership History

Possibly William F. E. Gurley (died 1943), Chicago [The picture was discovered, unstretched, among the holdings of the Department of Prints and Drawings in 1976. It is possible that it came to the Art Institute in 1922 or 1943 as part of the Gurley Bequest, a large collection of drawings many of which remained unaccessioned until the 1980s and 1990s]; transferred from the Department of Prints and Drawings to the Department of European Painting and accessioned as an anonymous gift, 1980