This is a sketch for the oil painting at Petworth House, dated by Schiff to c. 1812 (S. 1201). The incident is the climax of the Wife of Bath's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, written between 1386 and 1389. A knight at the court of King Arthur has forfeited his life for seducing a girl but, at the request of the Queen and her ladies, he has been given a year's grace on condition that within that time he can tell her what it is that women most desire. Having failed to discover a convincing answer on his wanderings he begins to make his way back to court, his year's grace having expired, but encounters an exceedingly ugly and foul old woman who promises to tell him the answer to the question in return for his promising to marry her. On returning to the Queen with the answer that what women desire most is sovereignity over their menfolk, he is freed and, for all his repugnance, agrees to marry the old woman and to enter her bed, upon which she cries,
Cast up the curtain, loke how that it is
and is revealed transformed into a beautiful young woman.

Below the main drawing are two pencil sketches in which Fuseli tried out alternative poses for the wife