Study for Inquisition, Illustration to Columbiad (c. 1806): Artwork and History

Study for Inquisition, Illustration to Columbiad (c. 1806) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Henry Fuseli Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

The Spanish Inquisition (symbolizing religious intolerance) is personified as a sinister-looking woman carrying a sword and holding a flaming vessel. She stands triumphantly atop the prone body of Truth. Peering out from behind her is a Dominican friar, an instrument of her authority. Fuseli’s painted sketch (a study for an unpublished engraving) illustrates lines from the early American poet Joel Barlow’s Columbiad (published 1807), an epic account in verse of the founding of the United States. Barlow had commissioned illustrations from Fuseli, which were ultimately rejected. Notably, Fuseli painted this study directly on an etching of one of his own paintings, which was presumably close at hand.

Object facts

• Title: Study for Inquisition, Illustration to Columbiad
• Date: c. 1806
• Artist attribution: Henry Fuseli Swiss, active in England, 1741-1825
• Place of origin: England
• Medium: Oil paint, over touches of graphite, on cream wove paper, laid down on stipple etching, etching, and aquatint in black on cream wove paper
• Dimensions: 52.9 × 44.6 cm (20 7/8 × 17 9/16 in.)
• Type: Drawing and Watercolor
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1922.5686

Collection credit

The Leonora Hall Gurley Memorial Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.