THE IMP OR ‘MARA’
This creature may derive from ancient sculpture, but it also alludes to contemporary ideas about ‘savages’ and halfhuman simians. His features have been taken as resembling Fuseli’s own. The painter may have been inspired by folklore relating to the ‘Mara’ – spirits who visit in the night, causing bad dreams – or classical stories about ‘incubi’ – wicked imps who assault women sexually in their sleep. Fuseli’s contemporaries detected references to Shakespeare.