Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00001543Two Heads of Damned Souls from Dante's "Inferno" (recto and verso)
by Henry Fuseli
Inscriptions
Inscribed verso, lower left: Heinrich Fuessly / 1741-1825
Provenance
Sold Puttick and Simpson, London, October 23, 1914, no. 236, to William F. E. Gurley (died 1943), Chicago [part of a group of nineteen works by Fuseli acquired by Gurley as nos. 235 and 236 of this sale, described under the heading of “Original Drawings by H. Fuseli” as “Illustrations to Milton’s Poems.”]; bequeathed to the Art Institute, 1943 [they were not individually accessioned when they arrived at the Art Institute, but the heads can be identified from Gurley’s index cards preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings]; transferred from the Department of Prints and Drawings to the Department of European Painting, 1990; accessioned, 1992.
Exhibition history
Art Institute of Chicago, New Light on Old Masters: French and British Paintings from 1700 to 1800, November 16, 1996–February 2, 1997, no cat. Art Institute of Chicago, Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing, November 18-April 1, 2017.
Publications
David H. Weinglass, “’Kann uns zum Vaterland die Fremde werden?’ In der Emigration: Johann Heinrich Füssli,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 23–24, 1991, p. 67. David H. Weinglass, Prints and Engraved Illustrations by and after Henry Fuseli: A Catalogue Raisonné, Aldershot, England, and Brookfield, Vt., 1994, pp. 41, 95, under nos. 50, 83. 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. 226-32, ill. Frances S. Connelly, “Profound Play: The Image Tradition of the Comic Grotesque” in Comic Grotesque, Wit and Mockery in German Art, 1870–1940, exh. cat. Neue Galerie, New York, 2005, p. 205, fig. 11.
Data retrieved from the Art Institute of Chicago on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Henry Fuseli (Swiss, active in England, 1741–1825)
- Date
- 1770–78
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Edges irregular, approx.: 40.6 × 29.8 cm (16 × 11 3/4 in.); Framed: 52.3 × 41.6 cm (20 9/16 × 16 3/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- oil on canvas
- Style
- 18th Century
- Place
- England
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection
- Accession no.
- 1992.1531
More by Henry Fuseli in museum collections
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00000978
Sketch for "Oath on the Rütli" (recto), Female Figure (verso)
Henry Fuseli1779–81 (recto); 1785–90 (verso) · Painting
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00001107
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00002156
Public collection via the Art Institute of Chicago
AT-00002159
Open-access museum record · AT-00001543
Powered by Art Trackers