Johann Heinrich Fuseli was born in Zurich in 1741, the son of a Swiss artist Johann Caspar Fussli. He mingled with the German Romantic Circle where he was introduced to classical literature, and it was at this time he acquired his knowledge of the six languages that he spoke fluently. In 1761 he was ordained through pressure from his father but due to his strong beliefs he left the priesthood and Zurich. Fuseli's subject drawings give almost the full range of Fuseli's literary interests - classical mythology, ancient history, the Bible, the Nibelungenlied, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. He never invented a situation or an action, which did not fully illustrate the text of the source that it came from. Therefore in the identification of subjects it is essential to account for every character. It is hard to know which source Fuseli would have been inspired by for the drawing of Cleopatra Receiving the Asp as he would not only have known the story as a historical event but also as a shakespearean play. Gert Schiff the expert on Fuseli wrote: 'Cleopatra, determined to die, has a farmer to hand her the snake which is hidden in a fig basket'. In drawing the human body Fuseli not only reproduced its outer form, but sought also to define its characteristic properties. 'In the same drawing Fuseli can depict the muscular, iron-hard body of the brutal man of violence, and also the body of the queenly woman with soft flowing contours'.(1) 1. Paul Ganz, The Drawings of Henry Fuseli, London 1949
William Van Holst John Rolls
Gert Schiff, Johann Heinirich Fuseli, Zurich 1973 no.1373.