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Odin in the Underworld

A work made of brush and gray wash and graphite, with touches of pen and brown ink and red chalk, on cream laid paper.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

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  • A work made of brush and gray wash and graphite, with touches of pen and brown ink and red chalk, on cream laid paper.

Date:

1770/72

Artist:

Henry Fuseli
Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825

About this artwork

Poet and scholar Thomas Gray’s The Descent of Odin (published 1768), a loose translation of an Old Norse poem, inspired this strange image—an exercise in nearly pure wash devoid of line. Fuseli’s drawing depicts the Norse god Odin descending into the underworld to learn the fate of his beloved son Balder. The arms emerging from the ground belong to the prophetess with whom Odin consults. Above is a vision of the Valkyries mourning at Balder’s tomb.
Fuseli’s image of Odin is a clever adaptation of Michelangelo’s God Dividing the Land and the Water, a fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Rome.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Prints and Drawings

Artist

Henry Fuseli

Title

Odin in the Underworld

Place

England (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.

1770–1772

Medium

Brush and gray wash and graphite, with touches of pen and brown ink and red chalk, on cream laid paper

Dimensions

58.6 × 44.4 cm (23 1/8 × 17 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection

Reference Number

1922.2153

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/84469/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

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.

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