Sketch for “Oath on the Rütli”, Henry Fuseli, 1779
Henry Fuseli (Swiss, 1741-1825)
Oil on canvas, 76 × 67.5 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago, anonymous gift.
---
Although Henry Fuseli spent most of his career in England, he was born Johann Heinrich Füssli in Zurich, a city that fostered early Romantic ideas. His first important commission was for the large painting The Oath on the Rütli in the city hall of Zurich. This sketch is a preliminary study for that work. It depicts the oath sworn on the Rütli meadow in 1291 by representatives of three Swiss cantons (territories) against the ambitions of their Habsburg overlords. Fuseli’s dynamic, elongated figures, which were strongly influenced by Mannerist art, are less an accurate representation of the historical past than they are an expression of the universal desire for freedom.
-The Art Institute of Chicago
---
Source and download: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/59989/sketch-for-oath-on-the-rutli-female-figure-verso