A figure is slumped, despairingly, next to the gigantic fragments of the foot and hand of the ancient sculpted Colossus of Constantine. These fragments were in the courtyard of the Capitoline Museums in Rome, which Fuseli would have visited when he was in Italy. The drawing is usually interpreted as an allegory, representing the anxiety modern artists felt when faced with the overpowering examples of ancient art.

In ancient myth Phaeton was the handsome child of the sun god Phoebus and Clymene who, growing vain, claimed from his father the right to drive his chariot for a day. Losing control of the vehicle, he plunged to earth spectacularly. Runciman probably took the subject from the ancient author Ovid’s Metamorphoses, an important source of subject matter for artists.

Milo was a celebrated athlete of ancient Italy. According to myth his downfall came because of his pride, when he tried to lift a huge log and got his hand stuck. He was torn apart by a lion, the scene drawn here by the young and idealistic Irish artist James Barry. Like the stories of Prometheus and Phaeton, this narrative provided artists with a chance to show off their skill in depicting the human figure in distress.

This drawing shows the martyrdom believed to have been suffered by St Erasmus. According to legend he was killed by having his intestines wound upon a windlass. However, this was a mistake, based on a misinterpretation of the rope he is shown holding, in traditional images, as a section of his intestines! Mortimer’s highly original drawing style and shocking subject matter influenced many artists of the period.

This is an example of the results of the ‘five-point’ drawing games Fuseli and his friends engaged in while in Rome The game involved placing dots in a random pattern on a sheet and joining these with the head and extremities of a drawn figure. Some of these dots are still visible here. The essence of the game was speed and facility, rather than plodding correctness.

This subject is drawn from Dante’s Inferno (1319-21). The poet, led by his guide Virgil, encounters a scene of horror in Hell. Thieves are attacked by snakes and are themselves transformed into serpents, then back again, in a writhing, mutable mass. Dante’s poem was only now being rediscovered by artists, who were drawn to its weird and fantastic images.

Eight male figures are shown, bound, in a gloomy dungeon. Most struggle and twist; one, to the bottom right, appears already dead; another, in the centre, appears insane. This is one of a group of works by an unidentified artist, created in Rome around 1779 under the influence of Fuseli. They are sometimes attributed to the talented but troubled young draughtsman James Jefferys.

This is the preparatory study for the large drawing, shown nearby. Romney’s rapid, broad style of drawing matches the violent subject-matter, taken from the Greek tragedy by Aeschylus. The translator of this play noted: ‘the poet has given free scope to his unbounded imagination, and exerted the strength and ardour of his genius with a wild and terrible magnificence’

The allegorical figures of Force and Strength tie the rebel Titan, Prometheus, to a rock on Jupiter’s orders. The subject is taken from the ancient Greek play, Prometheus Bound, by Aeschylus. This is one of a series of unusually large drawings created by the portrait painter Romney at the end of the 1770s, after he had spent time in Rome studying art. These focus on supernatural and violent themes.

This is an unidentified subject. Although we might speculate that this is intended to represent some specific classical or early Christian martyrdom, the artist’s real focus has clearly been on the sadomasochistic potential of the theme. Maria Cosway’s debt to the work of Fuseli was remarked upon frequently in the 1780s, when she was represented at the Royal Academy exhibitions by visionary and Sublime subjects.

This drawing exemplifies Cosway’s highly refined draughtsmanship. The technique of hatching and making dots and lozenges derives from printmaking, rather than the more expressive methods characteristic of so many drawings of Sublime subjects. Arguably, this technique is at odds with the theme. We might note that Cosway was primarily active as a portrait miniaturist, a profession which demanded close attention to detail.

Cast from the heavens, a rebellious Titan crashes through rocks while a tiny satyr and goat flee for their lives. According to classical mythology, the giant Titans had sought to overthrow heaven but their revolution failed and they were hurled to earth to make way for Zeus and his family. Banks was a close friend of Fuseli. Although this work is highly refined in its execution, it shows their shared interest in strange and savage themes.

This etching by Banks represents his own sculpture of The Falling Titan, shown nearby. Rather than serving as a strict reproduction, the print emphasizes the pictorial qualities of the original work. The scratchy draughtsmanship and weird perspective evokes the works of the famously ‘Sublime’ artists, Salvator Rosa (1615-73) and Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617).

The rebellious Titan, Prometheus, is tied down in punishment for having stolen fire from the gods. The subject is the same as in the drawings by Fuseli, Romney and Cosway, shown nearby. The purified, linear style used here by the sculptor Flaxman was greatly admired by contemporaries.

This drawing refers to the lines from Aeschylus’s play Prometheus Bound, describing his hero being attacked by Zeus: ‘Th’ impetuous storm / Rolls all its terrible fury on my head’. This design comes from a series of drawings illustrating the plays of Aeschylus. Flaxman had already produced two series of similar designs illustrating Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, which had attracted enormous acclaim.

This is an allegorical scene, which can be interpreted through Blake’s invented iconography. Orc, Blake’s embodiment of energy and the powers of revolution, is shown chained to a rock in a bleak landscape, while a second figure, who can be identified as his father Los, laments their fate. The theme of the chaining of Orc by his parents is a key element in Blake’s personal mythology.

Here, Blake renders rather slight Biblical references as a scene of fantastic, grotesque physical drama. The source is thought to be the story of Moses condemning to death the blasphemous son of an Israelite woman (Leviticus, Chapter 24). But it has also been suggested that the subject is, ‘The Stoning of Achan’ (Joshua, Chapter 7). Having confessed to coveting rich clothes, gold and silver, Achan is condemned to death by stoning and his worldly goods burned.

Illustrating the opening scene of Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound, this design shows the rebel Titan bound foot, arm and chest to a mountaintop; Crato, holding down Prometheus’ right arm, commands Hephaestus, the god of fire, to drive a spike through his heart. Bia holds the spike to his chest in preparation. Fuseli’s treatment of this theme suggests a provocative fusion of sex and violence.

This drawing shows marital problems of the most severe kind, in a subject drawn from the German medieval epic, The Nibelungenlied. The Burgundian king Gunther has just celebrated his marriage to the icily sexy Brunhild. But while he expected a night of passion, the new queen wrestles him into submission, binds his hands and feet and leaves him hanging from the ceiling so she can sleep undisturbed.

This drawing represents the ‘Punishment of the Thieves’ that Dante and Virgil witness in the eighth circle of Hell, described in Cantos 24 and 25 of Dante’s Inferno (1319-21). Here, punished souls are attacked by snakes and transformed into monstrous serpents. Blake makes the most of the possibilities for grotesque spectacle offered by the medieval poet.

This is the first illustrated edition of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, originally published in 1818. Von Holst’s design evokes the heroic, heavy-limbed figures of Fuseli. The setting, with its dramatic lighting and medieval tracery, is thoroughly Gothic in style.