Object number2002.14.3
The Dressing Room
Date1806-1807
Artist
Henry Fuseli
(Swiss, 1741-1825)
CultureSwiss, English
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 34 3/4 x 27 5/8 in. (88.27 x 70.17 cm)
Framed: 42 x 34 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (106.68 x 87 x 6.35 cm)
Framed: 42 x 34 1/4 x 2 1/2 in. (106.68 x 87 x 6.35 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Suzette Morton Davidson, class of 1934
On View
On viewPeriod18th c / 19th c
Classification(s)
Gift to VC Art Gallery from Suzette Morton Davidson, 2002
Exhibition HistoryZurich, Kusthaus Zurich, "Johann Heinrich Fussli," October 14, 2005-January 8, 2006.
Label TextThe Swiss artist Johann Heinrich Füssli, like the American John Singleton Copley, left his native country to take advantage of the rich cultural life that resided in London in the late eighteenth century. He arrived in 1765 at the encouragement of the British ambassador to Berlin and pursued a career of writing and translating. He was eventually persuaded by Joshua Reynolds to study painting, a course of action that prompted an extended sojourn in Italy from 1770 to 1778. After his return, he spent his painterly career on subjects inspired by the study of the Antique and of great works of literature, particularly the works of Shakespeare and Milton.
His paintings were charged with a highly Romantic emotionalism and his forms are often angular and facetted. His figural style concentrates on sculpturally muscled men derived from his study of Michelangelo, and on attenuated, Empire-waisted women rooted in the standard of beauty of his time. Images of women set in literary or secular contexts were prevalent in his art during the period 1790–1810, including a large number of brush and wash drawings of his wife in various poses and forms of fancy dress.
The specific characters in this painting are Folly, attended at the dressing mirror by servants, and Innocence, standing to one side by a piano and chastely dressed. This scene was rendered as a print referencing the themes of Folly and Innocence in the poem The Progress of Error by Englishman William Cowper (1731-1800).
The relevant passage begins:
View’d from a distance, and with heedless eyes
Folly and Innocence are so alike,
The difference, though essential, fails to strike.
Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare,
A simpering countenance, and a trifling air;
But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect,
Delights us by engaging our respect.
In his conclusion, the poet pronounces
That pleasures therefore, or what such we call art hurtful,
is a truth confess’d by all.
And some, that seem to threaten virtue less
still hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge.
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