Head of a Damned Soul from Dante's "Inferno," (verso)  1778

Born into a family of artists in Zurich, Henry Fuseli lived in Italy from 1770 to 1778. He probably painted this head, as well as the one executed with equally loose brushwork on the reverse of the canvas, as a study for his own use. Both images were also engraved as illustrations for Johann Caspar Lavater’s influential book on physiognomy (the science of facial structure)...