Theodor von Holst, Fantasy Based on Goethe's 'Faust' 1834
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Holst was the son of a Latvian music master who settled in London in 1807. In the 1820s he became a pupil of Fuseli, and like him specialised in literary subjects with an emphasis on the macabre and supernatural. This picture seems to relate to the legend of Faust, as retold by the German romantic playwright Goethe in his great poetic drama published in two parts in 1808 and 1832. Faust is a late medieval scholar with a thirst for ultimate knowledge who enters into a pact with the Devil, thereby pledging his soul… (read more)
August 2004
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