Sketch for "Oath on the Rütli," Female Figure (verso)

1779/81; 1785/90 (verso)

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

Although Henry Fuseli spent most of his career in England, he was born Johann Heinrich Füssli in Zurich, Switzerland. This is a preliminary study for the artist’s first important commission, The Oath on the Rütli, in Zurich’s city hall. Both the study and the final painting depict the oath sworn on the Rütli meadow in 1291 by representatives of three Swiss cantons (territories) against the ambitions of their Habsburg overlords. This sketch, with its limited palette and loose, expressive brushstrokes, shows the artist thinking through questions of tone and mood.

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

Artist: Henry Fuseli
Title: Sketch for "Oath on the Rütli," Female Figure (verso)
Place: United Kingdom (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.: 1779
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 76 × 67.5 cm (29 15/16 × 26 9/16 in.); Framed: 79.4 × 69.3 cm (31 1/4 × 27 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Anonymous gift
Reference Number: 1980.170
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/59989/manifest.json

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).

Bernisches Historisches Museum, Zeichen der Freiheit: Das Bild der Republik in der Kunst des 16. bis 20. Jahrhunderts, June 1-September 15, 1991, no. 4.
Art Institute of Chicago, Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing, November 18-April 1, 2017.

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

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Suggested Terms

See all hours

Sketch for "Oath on the Rütli," Female Figure (verso)

On View

Date:

Artist:

About this artwork

Status

Department

Artist

Title

Place

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.

Medium

Dimensions

Credit Line

Reference Number

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.

Extended information about this artwork

Publication History

Exhibition History

Provenance

Share

Explore Further

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Gallery actions

Image actions

Share

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.