The Witch of Endor (recto), Reclining Woman (verso)

The Old Testament story of the Witch of Endor relates that although King Saul had tried to dispel witches and necromancers from Israel, when needing advice on how to defeat his enemies he disguised himself and consulted a witch. In the ensuring ritual she raised the spirit of the prophet Samuel from the dead, but Samuel's ghost predicted the death of the king and the defeat of the Israelites, provoking Saul's dramatic swoon. The story was a favorite of British Romantic artists, and this is one of a series of drawings that Fuseli in 1791 made to adapt a sketch he had drawn in Rome in 1777 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, inv. DYCE.777) into the design for a print published in 1791.