Lot Essay
This drawing came from a sheet in the album annotated 'Mrs Wainwright's' by Miss Moore.
Fuseli stayed in Hastings in 1813 with John Knowles, following a 'nervous fever'. Fuseli did a number of drawings, generally similar in style, in the 1810s, including three associated with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, one dated 1815 (S. 1552-4; cf. also S. 1580-3), but lots ... and ... are distinct in that the woman is shown surprised while playing a keyboard instrument. The subject of this drawing is confirmed, or complicated, by the existence of another versions in Zurich, inscribed 'Hastings 1813' but on paper watermarked 'SMITH/&/ALLNUTT/1816'; Schiff (S. 1534) suggests that this discrepancy has been caused by the date on the drawing having been altered from '1813' but it seems more likely that the Zurich drawing, with its relatively hard outlines, is a later replica, inscribed by Fuseli in accordance with his original conception. He definitely took up the theme again in another drawing in Zurich, S. 1584, inscribed 'K.R. June 6.19' (there is another version in Dijon, S. 1585).
The later, Zurich version of this drawing is also inscribed in Greek or 'Kriemhild Sivrit. To follow ...Sivrit'. The same two names are also inscribed in English (?), as "Sivrit Chremhild" on a watercolour of 1807 in Auckland which also shows two lovers though here the man is kneeling at the feet of the woman who is shown full-face (S. 1819); "Sivrit" is presumably an Anglicisation from the German Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrit, a late Medieval variant of the Nibelungenlied
Kriemhild (the equivalent of Gutrune in Wagner's Götterdammerung), is a character in the Medieval Nibelungenlied, much illustrated by Fuseli in both oil paintings and drawings (S. 1198-9, 1490-2; S. 1380-1396, 1799) but it has proved impossible to find a source for this incident and the keyboard and sheet-music are highly anachronistic even for Fuseli. Presumably Fuseli regarded the love of Kriemhild for her firs husband Siegrield as an exemplar of Sensual love in general, leading as it did, after the murder of Siegfried by Kriemhild's kinsmen, to the orgy of murderous revenge that forms the climas of the second half of the Nebelungenlied. In addition, the depiction of the musical instrument introduces a classic symbol of sexual activity, as in seventeenth-century Dutch pictures of women playing the spinet
Fuseli stayed in Hastings in 1813 with John Knowles, following a 'nervous fever'. Fuseli did a number of drawings, generally similar in style, in the 1810s, including three associated with Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, one dated 1815 (S. 1552-4; cf. also S. 1580-3), but lots ... and ... are distinct in that the woman is shown surprised while playing a keyboard instrument. The subject of this drawing is confirmed, or complicated, by the existence of another versions in Zurich, inscribed 'Hastings 1813' but on paper watermarked 'SMITH/&/ALLNUTT/1816'; Schiff (S. 1534) suggests that this discrepancy has been caused by the date on the drawing having been altered from '1813' but it seems more likely that the Zurich drawing, with its relatively hard outlines, is a later replica, inscribed by Fuseli in accordance with his original conception. He definitely took up the theme again in another drawing in Zurich, S. 1584, inscribed 'K.R. June 6.19' (there is another version in Dijon, S. 1585).
The later, Zurich version of this drawing is also inscribed in Greek or 'Kriemhild Sivrit. To follow ...Sivrit'. The same two names are also inscribed in English (?), as "Sivrit Chremhild" on a watercolour of 1807 in Auckland which also shows two lovers though here the man is kneeling at the feet of the woman who is shown full-face (S. 1819); "Sivrit" is presumably an Anglicisation from the German Lied vom Hürnen Seyfrit, a late Medieval variant of the Nibelungenlied
Kriemhild (the equivalent of Gutrune in Wagner's Götterdammerung), is a character in the Medieval Nibelungenlied, much illustrated by Fuseli in both oil paintings and drawings (S. 1198-9, 1490-2; S. 1380-1396, 1799) but it has proved impossible to find a source for this incident and the keyboard and sheet-music are highly anachronistic even for Fuseli. Presumably Fuseli regarded the love of Kriemhild for her firs husband Siegrield as an exemplar of Sensual love in general, leading as it did, after the murder of Siegfried by Kriemhild's kinsmen, to the orgy of murderous revenge that forms the climas of the second half of the Nebelungenlied. In addition, the depiction of the musical instrument introduces a classic symbol of sexual activity, as in seventeenth-century Dutch pictures of women playing the spinet