Artist Henry Fuseli
Swiss, 1741-1825
Title
  • Portrait of a Lady
Date late 18th century
Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions Unframed: 40 × 50 inches (101.6 × 127 cm)
Framed: 47 3/4 × 57 1/2 × 2 7/8 inches (121.3 × 146.1 × 7.3 cm)
Credit Line Founders Society Purchase with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Bert L. Smokler and Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence A. Fleischman
Accession Number 55.5.B
Department European Painting
On View Era of Revolution S331, Level 3 (see map)
until ca. 1845, Collection Sir Brooke Boothby (1744-1824) (Ashbourne Hall, Derbyshire, England).
by 1879, Collection H. Haskett Smith Troweswell, Goudhurst,England);
May 9 1896, auction, lot 78, Viscount Eversley and other collections, Christie's (London, England).
collection Earl of Harrowby (Stafford, England).
by November 1947, dealer, Roland, Browse and Delbanco (London, England);
1950-1955, dealer, Durlacher Bros. (New York, New York, USA);
1955-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
Catalogue of the Valuable Collection of Ancient and Modern Pictures of the Right Hon. Viscount Eversley, Deceased; also the Celebrated Haskett Smith Collection of the Works of George Morland; also the Thomson Bonar Collection of Family Portraits, Formerly at Camden House, Chislehurst; and other Fine Works by F. Guardi and of the Early English School. Sales cat., Christie, Manson & Woods, London, May, 9, 1896, p. 16, no. 78.

Cummings, Frederick, Allen Staley and Robert Rosenblum. Romantic Art in Britain: Paintings and Drawings 1760-1860. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1968, no. 68, pp. 124–125, no. 68.

Charatan, Fred B. et al. "Fuseli's Nightmare." Journal of the American Medical Association 209, no. 9 (September 1, 1969): p. 1368.

Powell, N. Fuseli: The Nightmare. New York, 1973, pp. 5, 61, 74, 76, (col. pl and recto and verso ill.).

Schiff, Gert. Johann Heinrich Füssli: 1741–1825, 2 vols. Zurich, 1973, vol. 1: p. 496, no. 759; vol. 2: p. 198, no. 759 (ill.). [as "Porträt einer jungen Frau (vielleicht Anna Landolt?)"]

Johann Heinrich Fuseli. Petit Palais. Paris, 1975, no. 162 (col. cover ill. and recto and verso ill.).

Gmelin, H.G. Birke, A. M., and K. Kluxen, eds. Die hannoverschen Hofmaler Ziesenis und Ramberg und ihre kunstlerischen Beziehungen zu Grossbritannien. Hannover, 1986, p. 188.

Hofmann, W. transl. from German by M. Couffon. Une époque en rupture 1750-1830. Paris, 1995, p. 184 (fig. 151).

Harris, James C. "The Nightmare." Archives of General Psychiatry 61, 5 (May 2004): pp. 429, 439-440. [mention of painting and photo]