Milton Dictating to His Daughter

1794

Henry Fuseli (Swiss, active in England, 1741–1825)

This painting by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli depicts 17th-century English poet John Milton, who became blind in his 40s, dictating his epic poem Paradise Lost. His daughter transcribes his words while another woman listens intently as she sews. A forerunner of the Romantic Movement, Fuseli created drama through chromatic contrast. A cool light illuminates the rosy-cheeked women and casts deep shadows around Milton’s ghostly figure and face. Fuseli created this painting for his Milton Gallery, a self-run enterprise that showcased the artist’s Milton-inspired works. While this entrepreneurial venture failed commercially, it raised Fuseli’s prestige and visibility as an artist.

Status: On View, Gallery 219
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Henry Fuseli
Title: Milton Dictating to His Daughter
Place: Switzerland (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1793
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 121.2 × 118.7 cm (47 3/4 × 46 3/4 in.); Framed: 142.9 × 130.5 cm (56 1/4 × 51 3/8 in.)
Credit Line: Preston O. Morton Memorial Purchase Fund for Older Paintings
Reference Number: 1973.303
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/44739/manifest.json

John Knowles, The Life and Writings of Henry Fuseli, Esq., M.A., R.A., vol. 1 (London, 1831), p. 221.
Arnold Federman, Johann Heinrich Füssli: Dichter und Maler, 1741–1825 (Zurich and Leipzig, 1927), p. 172.
David Irwin, “Fuseli’s Milton Gallery: Unpublished Letters,” Burlington Magazine 101 (1959), p. 436 n. 1.
Hugh Macandrew, “Henry Fuseli and William Roscoe,” Liverpool Libraries, Museums, and Arts Committee Bulletin 8 (1959–60), p. 47.
Hugh Macandrew, “Selected Letters from the Correspondence of Henry Fuseli and William Roscoe,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 62 (1963), pp. 210, 215, 225.
Gert Schiff, Johann Heinrich Füsslis Milton-Galerie, Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft Zürich, Schriften Nr. 5 (Zurich and Struttgart, 1963), pp. 13, 18, 20, 108–11, 113 (ill.), 116, 139, 158, no. 40.
Marcia R. Pointon, Milton and English Art (Toronto, 1970), pp. 251–52, 260.
Gert Schiff, Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741–1851 (Zurich and Munich, 1973), vol. 1, pp. 166, 177, 221–23, 524, no. 921, p. 542; vol. 2, fig. 921.
“La Chronique des arts,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 83 (1974), p. 131, fig. 419.
John David Farmer, “Henry Fuseli, Milton, and English Romanticism,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago 68, 4 (1974), pp. 14–19, ill.
David H. Weinglass, ed., The Collected English Letters of Henry Fuseli (Millwood, N.Y., 1982), pp. 117, 127, 155, 167–68, 213, 217–18, 224, 250.
Peter Tomory, “Henry Fuseli’s Milton When a Youth,” Art Bulletin of Victoria 27 (1986), p. 27.
Gloria Groom, “Art Illustration, and Enterprise in Late Eighteenth-Century English Art: A Painting by Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 18 (1992), p. 129, fig. 6.
David H. Weinglass, Prints and Engraved Illustrations by and after Henry Fuseli: A Catalogue Raisonné (Aldershot, England, and Brookfield, Vt., 1994), p. 310, under no. 264.
Malcolm Warner in Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago. A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1996), pp. 214–20, ill.
Christoph Becker, Johann Heinrich Füssli. Das verlorene Paradies, exh. cat., Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 64-66, 68, no. 85.
Judith Pascoe, Romantic Theatricality: Gender, Poetry, and Spectatorship (Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 1997). pp. 200–04, fig. 17.
Arline Meyer, “Parnassus from the foothills: The Royal Academy viewed by Thomas Rowlandson and John Wolcot (Peter Pindar),” The British Art Journal 3, 2 (2002), p. 36, fig. 6.
Franziska Lentzsch, “Londoner Theater” in Füssli: The Wild Swiss, exh. cat. (Kunsthaus Zurich, 2005), pp. 223, 229, ill.

London, Christie’s Great Rooms, The Milton Gallery, 1799–1800, no. 40.
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Johann Heinrich Füssli, 1741–1825, 1969, no. 52.
Milwaukee, University of Wisconsin, John Milton, Related Art, 1974 (no cat.).
Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Johann Heinrich Füssli. Das verlorene Paradies, September 27, 1997–January 11, 1998, cat. 85.
Zurich, Kunsthaus Zurich, Füssli: The Wild Swiss, October 14, 2005- January 8, 2006, no. 185.
Kunstmuseum Basel, Fuseli. Drama and Theatre, October 20, 2018-February 17, 2019.

Sent by the artist to William Roscoe, Liverpool, in 1800, apparently in exchange for funds already advanced by Roscoe [Weinglass 1982, pp. 217-18, 224]; sold by Roscoe before August 20, 1802, possibly to John Stuart, 1st marquess of Bute (d. 1814) [see Weinglass 1982, p. 250 for the sale of this and three other paintings, and Warner 1996, p. 219 n. 4 for the likelihood that Bute was the buyer]. In the possession of his grandson, John Crighton-Stuart, 2nd marquess of Bute, by 1831 [Knowles 1831, vol. 1, p. 221 lists Bute as the owner of this painting]. Ernest Permain, London, 1930, possibly on consignment; offered for sale, G. and L. Bollag, Zurich, March 28, 1930, no. 56, pl. VII, bought in [letter of January 24, 1994 from Max Bollag to Malcolm Warner in curatorial file]; sold in London to Galerie Bollag, Zurich, March 10, 1932 [according to letter of Max Bollag cited above and another of December 15, 1993]; private collection of Léon Bollag (d. 1958), Zurich; his estate; then, from 1968, his son Max Bollag, Zurich [according to letters cited above]; sold by him to E. V. Thaw and Co., New York, by February 1973; sold to the Art Institute, 1973.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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