.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The present drawing is an illustration to Canto IV of Erasmus Darwin’s (1731-1802) epic evolutionary poem The Temple of Nature; or the Origin of Society. Fuseli made four illustrations for the original edition: the frontispiece, and three for the body of the text, all personifying natural processes through myth-like scenes. Darwin had much admired Fuseli’s 1781 painting The Nightmare, and wrote a glowing description of it in an earlier work, Loves of the Plants. Fuseli had introduced Darwin to his publisher and great friend Joseph Johnson (1738-1809), and executed two illustrations for The Economy of Vegetation (1789). The engravings executed for The Temple of Nature are the culmination of this relationship, creating a fascinating interplay between the text of the poem and Fuseli’s preoccupation with visionary apparitions.
The four lines chosen for the subject matter of the illustration are both seemingly inconsequential and somewhat opaque:
So holy transports in the cloyster's shade
Play round thy toilet, visionary maid!
Charm'd o'er thy bed celestial voices sing,
And Seraphs hover on enamour'd wing.
Peter Tomory has suggested that the drawing explores the separation between sleeping and dreaming, and depicts a young woman ‘being awakened to the power of celestial love via the imagery of Saint Cecilia and her harpsichord as a symbol of virginity’ (op. cit., p. 182).
Martin Priestman has gone further in his reading of the image, suggesting that ‘the tall central figure is presumably Fancy, imprinting a dreamlike vision on the well-lit nun like figure. Whether the vision is of Fancy herself transmogrified into a saint (or perhaps the Virgin Mary) is unclear: perhaps she is simply a conduit to the Holy-Ghost dove who hovers above, more clearly seen in the engraving, and/or to the celestial music of the seraph behind her.
The nun-like woman who is receiving these impressions looks very awake, so perhaps she herself is a dream-projection of the sleeping (though less vestal) figure on the floor, whose thoughts before starting to dream were perhaps already imprinted by the devotional book she was reading.’ (Professor Martin Priestman, University of Roehampton, from his paper on ‘"Fuseli’s poetic eye": imprints and impressions in Fuseli and Erasmus Darwin', delivered at the British Association of Romantic Studies' Romantic Imprints conference, Cardiff University, 16-19 July 2015).
Fuseli was much concerned with the idea that man is dominated by celestial powers, and that dreams and our subconscious are the sphere in which feelings and emotions are most fully realised. As such he frequently visualised dream sequences in his work, giving their hazy realities a solid visual form on the page. In order to create the feeling of a dream or a shifting reality, Fuseli uses irrational space and discordant scale as two of his key devices.
Under the aegis of Darwin’s writings, Fuseli has united two of his key preoccupations: that of the subconscious mind coupled with an erotic undertone. The dream state of unconsciousness is depicted by the oversized figures; projections of the sleeping mind, their communication indicated by the mirrored arm gestures. Fuseli seems to deliberately contrast the nun-like sleeping figure, formally dressed and with her hair neatly tied up, with two dominant, courtesan-like figures, scantily clad, their degree of dishabille increasing in proportion with their place in Fuseli’s triangular composition. Bearing in mind Fuseli’s predilection for instilling common place objects an esoteric and erotic meanings, Fuseli is surely exploring the contrast between chasteness and eroticism. The previously unrecorded drawing of a pair of entwined naked figures on the verso is seemingly unconnected to the subject on the recto.
Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, was a physician and natural philosopher who studied at both Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, before settling in the Midlands, where he became a central figure in the Midlands Enlightenment as a founder member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham and the Derby Philosophical Society. He established a successful medical practice in Lichfield, and then Derby, whilst pursuing his interests in natural philosophy and botany. In 1783 he published the first part of his translations of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linneaus (1707-1778), and began working on a poem which aimed to introduce the Linnean classification to a wider audience. The Loves of Plants was published anonymously in 1789, narrated by the goddess of botany, and dramatising accounts of 83 species of plants.
His final, and greatest, work, The Temple of Nature, or The Origin of Society, was published posthumously in 1803, and was a poem exploring the process of evolution and the operations of the natural world. Illustrated with figures from Eleusinian and Egyptian mysteries, it elucidated Darwin’s early theory that the natural world had developed over time.
Moses Haughton (1773-1849) became Fuseli’s resident engraver in 1803, and executed 22 plates after Fuseli’s drawings for various projects.
The drawing was in the collection of Baroness North. Fuseli often stayed at Putney Hill, the home of his great friend and patron Susan, née Coutts, Countess of Guilford (1771-1837), later Baroness North. Her daughters Susan and Georgina lived with her, and Susan (1797-1884) succeeded her as Baroness North, and inherited a large quantity of Fuseli drawings which she later added to. Sales of these were held at Sotheby’s, London, 14-15 July 1885, and also through Arnold Otto Meyer, Leipzig, 19-20 March 1914.
We are grateful to Professor Martin Priestman for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
The four lines chosen for the subject matter of the illustration are both seemingly inconsequential and somewhat opaque:
So holy transports in the cloyster's shade
Play round thy toilet, visionary maid!
Charm'd o'er thy bed celestial voices sing,
And Seraphs hover on enamour'd wing.
Peter Tomory has suggested that the drawing explores the separation between sleeping and dreaming, and depicts a young woman ‘being awakened to the power of celestial love via the imagery of Saint Cecilia and her harpsichord as a symbol of virginity’ (op. cit., p. 182).
Martin Priestman has gone further in his reading of the image, suggesting that ‘the tall central figure is presumably Fancy, imprinting a dreamlike vision on the well-lit nun like figure. Whether the vision is of Fancy herself transmogrified into a saint (or perhaps the Virgin Mary) is unclear: perhaps she is simply a conduit to the Holy-Ghost dove who hovers above, more clearly seen in the engraving, and/or to the celestial music of the seraph behind her.
The nun-like woman who is receiving these impressions looks very awake, so perhaps she herself is a dream-projection of the sleeping (though less vestal) figure on the floor, whose thoughts before starting to dream were perhaps already imprinted by the devotional book she was reading.’ (Professor Martin Priestman, University of Roehampton, from his paper on ‘"Fuseli’s poetic eye": imprints and impressions in Fuseli and Erasmus Darwin', delivered at the British Association of Romantic Studies' Romantic Imprints conference, Cardiff University, 16-19 July 2015).
Fuseli was much concerned with the idea that man is dominated by celestial powers, and that dreams and our subconscious are the sphere in which feelings and emotions are most fully realised. As such he frequently visualised dream sequences in his work, giving their hazy realities a solid visual form on the page. In order to create the feeling of a dream or a shifting reality, Fuseli uses irrational space and discordant scale as two of his key devices.
Under the aegis of Darwin’s writings, Fuseli has united two of his key preoccupations: that of the subconscious mind coupled with an erotic undertone. The dream state of unconsciousness is depicted by the oversized figures; projections of the sleeping mind, their communication indicated by the mirrored arm gestures. Fuseli seems to deliberately contrast the nun-like sleeping figure, formally dressed and with her hair neatly tied up, with two dominant, courtesan-like figures, scantily clad, their degree of dishabille increasing in proportion with their place in Fuseli’s triangular composition. Bearing in mind Fuseli’s predilection for instilling common place objects an esoteric and erotic meanings, Fuseli is surely exploring the contrast between chasteness and eroticism. The previously unrecorded drawing of a pair of entwined naked figures on the verso is seemingly unconnected to the subject on the recto.
Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, was a physician and natural philosopher who studied at both Cambridge and Edinburgh universities, before settling in the Midlands, where he became a central figure in the Midlands Enlightenment as a founder member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham and the Derby Philosophical Society. He established a successful medical practice in Lichfield, and then Derby, whilst pursuing his interests in natural philosophy and botany. In 1783 he published the first part of his translations of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linneaus (1707-1778), and began working on a poem which aimed to introduce the Linnean classification to a wider audience. The Loves of Plants was published anonymously in 1789, narrated by the goddess of botany, and dramatising accounts of 83 species of plants.
His final, and greatest, work, The Temple of Nature, or The Origin of Society, was published posthumously in 1803, and was a poem exploring the process of evolution and the operations of the natural world. Illustrated with figures from Eleusinian and Egyptian mysteries, it elucidated Darwin’s early theory that the natural world had developed over time.
Moses Haughton (1773-1849) became Fuseli’s resident engraver in 1803, and executed 22 plates after Fuseli’s drawings for various projects.
The drawing was in the collection of Baroness North. Fuseli often stayed at Putney Hill, the home of his great friend and patron Susan, née Coutts, Countess of Guilford (1771-1837), later Baroness North. Her daughters Susan and Georgina lived with her, and Susan (1797-1884) succeeded her as Baroness North, and inherited a large quantity of Fuseli drawings which she later added to. Sales of these were held at Sotheby’s, London, 14-15 July 1885, and also through Arnold Otto Meyer, Leipzig, 19-20 March 1914.
We are grateful to Professor Martin Priestman for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.