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拍品专文
The identification of this drawing as a portrait of Sophia Rawlins whom Fuseli married on 30 July 1788, was first made by Gert Schiff in a letter to Brinsley Ford of 10 October 1960 (Herrmann, loc. cit.): 'Quite recently the first authenticated portrait of Mrs. Fuseli has been discovered. It is a pencil drawing, with two notes at the foot ''Mrs. Fuseli'' and ''H. Fuseli fecit'' and a further note in ink ''1 July 98'', and it is mounted and bound in a copy of James Boadem's Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble, two volumes, 1825, which is in the Hornby Library, Liverpool ' (Schiff, 1973, no. 1110).
Schiff continues, 'By way of comparison with the drawing, it becomes obvious that most of the 'fashionable' portraits of women are in fact portraits of Mrs. Fuseli, and I think this is the case of your Bust of a Woman (Powell, op. cit., no. 61) as well.' Several such portrait drawings were identified as showing Mrs. Fuseli in the Tate Gallery exhibition of 1975 (see nos. 5, 177-83) and also in Schiff's complete catalogue of 1973, nos. 1104-19, 1644-55, 1772-8. For a further group of such drawings of Mrs Fuseli see the album of Fuseli drawings dispersed in these Rooms, 14 April 1992 (lots 9, 10, 12 and 15). Most of these drawings were made between 1790 and 1800, though twelve examples were repeated by Fuseli as replicas in 1810. The expressive variety of this great series which comprises more than 150 portraits of his wife is impressive and demonstrates Fuseli's ability to use her as a model for a wide range of moods. The physical attributes Fuseli favoured in his wife also appear regularly in his published illustrations of women, such as Salome receiving the head of John the Baptist (Schiff, op.cit., no. 961), in Chalmers' edition of Shakespeare (nos. 1265-1267), in the English translation of Wieland's Oberon (no. 1327), and even in William Cowper's Poems (nos. 1231-1232, 1235). 'Only now, as we are able to identify her with greater certainty, do we have a clearer idea of the full range of guises in which Fuseli imagined her' (D.H. Weinglass, op. cit., p. 34).
Mrs Fuseli came from Batheaston, just outside Bath. Fuseli probably met his wife at an exhibition at the Free Society of Artists in 1783 where she had shown two landscapes (nos. 248, 254) and was listed as 'Painter'. Mary Balmanno notes that Sophia 'had in her youth won Mr Fuseli's heart by her her exquisite symmetry of form, which in its contour had all the fulness [sic] and perfection of the antique. [He had been] attracted not less by ... the frankness of her disposition.' Mrs Balmanno adds without apparent irony: 'It was a happy choice for himself, for she possessed no accomplishments save domestic ones, no love for literature save such as claimed her spouse for its author, and not a wish beyond that of making him happy' (Balmanno, op. cit., p. 200)'.
Judging by the style of her hair, this drawing must date from the early 1790s; see in particular the example dated 'Dec 90' in the Kunsthaus, Zurich (No. 1914/32: Schiff, 1973, no. 1084 and Tate Gallery, 1975, no. 177). A long analysis of the evolution of Mrs Fuseli's hairstyle is given by Schiff in the Tate Gallery catalogue: 'Until about 1795 she wore a complicated style in which the bulk of the hair, after being being dressed with pomade and powder, was combed up strand by strand and the ends crimped with curling tongs. The result resembled a fluted diadem or halo, shaped like a double moon descending in a mass of tight curls almost to the bridge of the nose... This effect obviously could not be achieved without the padding provided by a toque, the peak of which surmounted the magnificent construction like a small obelisk. A number of stiffly pasted curls projected on either side of the toque and a catogan, or wide loop of smooth hair, was knotted at the nape of the neck.' (op.cit., pp. 15-16.).
We are grateful to Dr. David H. Weinglass, Emeritus Professor, University of Missouri--Kansas City, for his help with this catalogue entry.
Schiff continues, 'By way of comparison with the drawing, it becomes obvious that most of the 'fashionable' portraits of women are in fact portraits of Mrs. Fuseli, and I think this is the case of your Bust of a Woman (Powell, op. cit., no. 61) as well.' Several such portrait drawings were identified as showing Mrs. Fuseli in the Tate Gallery exhibition of 1975 (see nos. 5, 177-83) and also in Schiff's complete catalogue of 1973, nos. 1104-19, 1644-55, 1772-8. For a further group of such drawings of Mrs Fuseli see the album of Fuseli drawings dispersed in these Rooms, 14 April 1992 (lots 9, 10, 12 and 15). Most of these drawings were made between 1790 and 1800, though twelve examples were repeated by Fuseli as replicas in 1810. The expressive variety of this great series which comprises more than 150 portraits of his wife is impressive and demonstrates Fuseli's ability to use her as a model for a wide range of moods. The physical attributes Fuseli favoured in his wife also appear regularly in his published illustrations of women, such as Salome receiving the head of John the Baptist (Schiff, op.cit., no. 961), in Chalmers' edition of Shakespeare (nos. 1265-1267), in the English translation of Wieland's Oberon (no. 1327), and even in William Cowper's Poems (nos. 1231-1232, 1235). 'Only now, as we are able to identify her with greater certainty, do we have a clearer idea of the full range of guises in which Fuseli imagined her' (D.H. Weinglass, op. cit., p. 34).
Mrs Fuseli came from Batheaston, just outside Bath. Fuseli probably met his wife at an exhibition at the Free Society of Artists in 1783 where she had shown two landscapes (nos. 248, 254) and was listed as 'Painter'. Mary Balmanno notes that Sophia 'had in her youth won Mr Fuseli's heart by her her exquisite symmetry of form, which in its contour had all the fulness [sic] and perfection of the antique. [He had been] attracted not less by ... the frankness of her disposition.' Mrs Balmanno adds without apparent irony: 'It was a happy choice for himself, for she possessed no accomplishments save domestic ones, no love for literature save such as claimed her spouse for its author, and not a wish beyond that of making him happy' (Balmanno, op. cit., p. 200)'.
Judging by the style of her hair, this drawing must date from the early 1790s; see in particular the example dated 'Dec 90' in the Kunsthaus, Zurich (No. 1914/32: Schiff, 1973, no. 1084 and Tate Gallery, 1975, no. 177). A long analysis of the evolution of Mrs Fuseli's hairstyle is given by Schiff in the Tate Gallery catalogue: 'Until about 1795 she wore a complicated style in which the bulk of the hair, after being being dressed with pomade and powder, was combed up strand by strand and the ends crimped with curling tongs. The result resembled a fluted diadem or halo, shaped like a double moon descending in a mass of tight curls almost to the bridge of the nose... This effect obviously could not be achieved without the padding provided by a toque, the peak of which surmounted the magnificent construction like a small obelisk. A number of stiffly pasted curls projected on either side of the toque and a catogan, or wide loop of smooth hair, was knotted at the nape of the neck.' (op.cit., pp. 15-16.).
We are grateful to Dr. David H. Weinglass, Emeritus Professor, University of Missouri--Kansas City, for his help with this catalogue entry.