Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• McPartland, Perry

Titel

Titania and Bottom and a Vitruvian Fairy: A New Reference to the Work of Leonardo da Vinci in Henry Fuseli's Titania and Bottom

Ist Teil von

• ANQ (Lexington, Ky.), 2022-01, Vol.35 (1), p.35-38

Ort / Verlag

Philadelphia: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• It has been variously remarked that the figure of Shakespeare's Fairy Queen, Titania, in Henry Fuseli's painting, Titania and Bottom (c 1790) is almost certainly an appropriation of Leonardo da Vinci's female figure in the renaissance artist's famous painting of Leda and the swan. Here, McPartland would like to point out that Fuseli's work makes a second reference to da Vinci, and that this occurs in the painting's depiction of the fairy, Mustardseed. Mustardseed is located at the heart of the picture, standing in Bottom's palm. He is a small figure, and half enveloped in shadow, so he would direct those who do not have to hand a good copy of the painting to instead look up Jean Pierre Simon's engraved reproduction from 1796 where this figure can be more easily made out.