A Woman on a balcony with high dressed hair and hat

Mrs Fuseli is the model for this remarkable creature. She appears repeatedly in Fuseli’s work, sometimes as a source of pleasure, and in others as an aggressive and challenging virago with an underlying aura of violence. Fuseli was drawn to texts that referred to the aggressive nature of women, and there is no doubt he gained erotic pleasure from capturing this aspect of femininity. Here the woman’s costume appears as a form of bondage, her waist tightly constrained, leather straps around her wrists and a collar that threatens to engulf her face, set off by a bizarre little hat perched on her excessive wig.

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