In a scene from Shakespeare’s King Henry VIII (1613), Queen Katherine dreams of eternal happiness while on her deathbed. As the ‘spirits of peace’ depart from her, she raises her arms in joy. Katherine of Aragon (1485-1536) was the wife of Henry VIII from 1501 until their divorce in 1533, causing the break from Rome and allowing Henry to marry Ann Boleyn.

This watercolour probably represents the closing scene of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-6). The king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania, embrace to the left, reunited at last after the separation which had set in motion the comic action of the preceding evening. Puck prances playfully next to them, his upraised arms and pointed ears recalling classical treatments of Bacchus or satyrs.

In a scene from Shakespeare's Henry VIII (1613), the Queen is visited by spectral apparitions, on the night before her sudden death. Blake is here clearly indebted to Fuseli's large composition of the same subject, exhibited in 1781, and his Shepherd's Dream, exhibited in 1786. Both these paintings are on show in this room.

This is a comment on the cynical marriage of the notoriously dissolute Prince of Wales (1762-1830) to Caroline of Brunswick (1768-1821). The Prince dreams about the loveliness of his new wife, and the treasures the marriage will bring. His father, George III, offers money, while his mother hopefully holds out a book titled 'The Art of Getting Pretty Children'. The Prince's many vices are shown retreating to the left.

Titania, the queen of the fairies, has been made by her jealous husband Oberon to fall in love with Bottom, whose head has been magically transformed into that of an ass. Bottom orders her fairies to serve his whims. Peaseblossom scratches his head, Mustardseed rubs his nose, Cobweb, standing on Bottom's outstretched hand, is ordered to kill a bumblebee. The painting was commissioned by John Boydell for his Shakespeare Gallery.

Henry Fuseli
Titania Awakening (Titanias Erwachen) 1785-1790
Oil on canvas, 2220 x 2800 mm
Lent by the Kunstmuseum, Winterthur. Presented by George Reinhart, 1946

Titania, the queen of the fairies, wakes and tells Oberon of her dream in which she was in love with an ass. Oberon explains that she has been enchanted. A group of good fairies appear on the left. To the right, Bottom sleeps surrounded by evil spirits, including a wicked imp riding a 'nightmare'. This was the second painting of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595-6) commissioned from Fuseli by John Boydell.

A shepherd rests while tending his sheep. Wrapped in his cloak, with his dog taking watch, he is visited by a parade of imps, fairies and elves who circle over him. The subject is drawn from folklore, and had appeared in Shakespeare and in other poetry. The vision of the shepherd was used as a simile by John Milton in his Paradise Lost (1667), to describe the fallen angels shrinking to fairysize to make more room in Hell. Fuseli referred to this text when he first exhibited the painting.

The subject is taken from the short tale Undine (1811) by the German writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777-1843). The heroine Bertalda is tormented by a host of fantastical creatures, conjured by the wicked supernatural creature, Kühleborn. These have been sent in an attempt to drive her away from the household of the hero, Huldbrand, and the lovely water-nymph Undine.

The female character is Bertalda, who has entered the happy household of Huldbrand and the water-nymph Undine. The nymph's evil uncle, Kühleborn, intent on keeping the marriage between Undine and Huldbrand intact, tortures Bertalda mentally, haunting her with evil spirits. The subject is taken from the fairytale, Undine, by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777-1843).

An image of perverted domesticity; three older women sit at a tea-table. They leer at a younger woman seated behind a screen, sewing, her neck fastened to the wall by a leather strap. The present title of this drawing is an invention. It has been suggested that the subject might be the scene in Samuel Richardon's novel Pamela (1740), or it may be a brothel-scene.

Fuseli drew numerous studies like this, showing women in weird and wonderful head-dresses and hats. They represent an apparently obsessive and highly sexualised vision of femininity. Here, the indication of a window frame is suggestive; are these prostitutes looking down on their prospective clients, or are they figures in a theatre?

This is an example of the large group of drawings of women with elaborate hair and hats by Fuseli. Such drawings are usually indentified as showing simply 'women' or, more suggestively, 'courtesans'. They have also been claimed as portraits of Fuseli's wife, Sophia Rawlins, a younger woman whom he married in 1788.

The subject of this allegorical design is disputed. It has been suggested that it relates the imagery of a passage in a philosophical text by the ancient writer Plato; alternatively, it is said to illustrate a poem by Fuseli's friend John Armstrong (1709-79). Either way, it presents a potent image of femininity.

Despite the titillating content, this drawing is carefully composed and higly finished. The inscription is taken from the Greek playwright Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound: 'Thus fatal to my foes be love'. Like the erotic designs from Fuseli’s Roman years (shown nearby), this drawing raises unresolved issues. Should we consider these designs as simply pornographic or as something more complex?

This sexually explicit design clearly shows the influence of Fuseli's works in this genre. According to an early report, von Holst was actually commissioned in his youth by the painter Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830) to create such compositions for George IV. The relatively high level of finish might imply this drawing was a commission rather than a work created for private pleasure.

This is one of a group of designs which seem to show a woman torturing a boy or small man. The weird tool she holds defies description. Is it a knife, a brush, or a chisel? Themes of infanticide appeared in a number of eminent classical and biblical stories. Fuseli's treatment of the theme is distinctive in its juxtaposition of elaborate modern costumes with scenes of utter depravity.

Fuseli drew a group of designs which appear to represent a woman torturing or killing a diminuitive male figure. Here, the figure of the victim is barely indicated in pencil. Fuseli's women, empowered phallically with weapons and with their long hair, are symbols of highly sexualised, threateningly powerful femininity.

By tradition these legs are said to be those of Maria Anne Fitzherbert (1756-1837), one of the lovers of George IV when Prince of Wales (and, as she was a Catholic, illegally his wife from 1785). George commissioned a number of pornographic drawings from von Holst.

These engravings are based on drawings by Fuseli. In 'Addition B', a female hand pinches the folds suggestively. In the other image, a vigorous male hand is contrasted with a limp, ineffectual female. The potential of body parts to become powerfully symbolic was enhanced by physiognomy – the pseudo-science of interpreting personality from physical appearances.