Frail as your silken sisters of the field."
Cuthbert Bede, B.A.
The Painting by Fuseli (Vol. vii., p. 453.).—The picture by the late Henry Fuseli, R.A., inquired after by Mr. Sansom, is in the collection at Sir John Soane's Museum; it was purchased by him in 1802.
It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1780, and is thus entered in the Catalogue of that year:
"No. 77. Ezzelin Bracciaferro musing over Meduna, destroyed by him, for disloyalty, during his absence in the Holy Land. Fuseli."
There is an engraving of the picture in Essays on Physiognomy, by J. C. Lavater, translated from the French by Henry Hunter, D.D., 4to.: London, 1789. The second volume, p. 294.
The inscription under that engraving, by Holloway, is as follows:
"Ezzelin, Count of Ravenna, surnamed Bracciaferro or Iron Arm, musing over the body of Meduna; slain by him, for infidelity, during his absence in the Holy Land."
George Bailey.
The subject of your correspondent J. Sansom's inquiry is in the Soane Museum, Lincoln's Inn Fields. Search among the Italian story-tellers will not discover the origin of the picture of Count Ezzelin's remorse: it sprung from that fertile source of fearful images—Henry Fuseli's brain. The work might well have been left without a name, but for the requirements of the Royal Academy Catalogue, and, it must be added, Fuseli's desire to mystify the Italian as well as the other scholars of his day.