The Changeling

1770–1778

Rome: Michelangelo and a new name, Fuseli

During his Italian years Füssli changed his name to the more Italian-sounding Fuseli; in Rome he moved in the circle of the Scottish painter Alexander Runciman and the Swedish sculptor Tobias Sergel, and he also met Anton Raphael Mengs. He studied Michelangelo and liked to contemplate the marble statues of Monte Cavallo in the evening, against a murky sky or lit by lightning.

1770–1778

Travel: Italy

1778–1825 · Virkested

Great Britain

early 1779

Returns to London by way of Zürich

In early 1779 Fuseli returned to Britain, visiting Zürich on the way; in London, where he was already famous, a commission awaited him from the print publisher John Boydell for the Shakespeare Gallery he was then creating, and Fuseli painted several pictures for it. In London he also published the English translation of Lavater's work on physiognomy and helped the poet William Cowper with his translation of Homer.

1782

“The Nightmare” is exhibited

Fuseli's earliest painting was “Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of the Baker and Butler”, but the first to excite particular attention was “The Nightmare”, exhibited in 1782. He painted several versions of it.