Two studies of King Lear

This depicts a scene from Shakespeare's King Lear. David Weinglass suggests it shows Lear, naked, at the height of his madness meeting the blinded Gloucester, who shies away in fear from Lear, until he recognises his voice (Act IV, Scene VI, 80-203). A second interpretation is that the bearded King Lear is shown in two studies, clothed in one, naked in the other with his robe just hinted at lightly around his knees. It may illustrate a scene from Act III, Scene IV, where Kent leads Lear through the storm to the hovel and Lear is depicted recoiling in horror as he mounts some steps . Kent tries to get him to go inside, but Lear resists, saying that his own mental anguish makes him hardly feel the storm. In it's sketchier style of draftsmanship and use of soft pencil this drawing can be compared to one sold at Christie's, London, 18 November 1980, lot 7, which was formerly included in an album of drawings executed by James Northcote in Italy in 1777, when Northcote and Fuseli were great friends.