The Nightmare

The Nightmare is an oil painting on canvas measuring 101 by 127 centimeters, created by Henry Fuseli in 1781. It depicts a sleeping woman in a white dress lying at the edge of a bed, her head and arms hanging down, while an incubus crouches on her chest and a horse’s head emerges from red velvet curtains behind the bed. Fuseli employs chiaroscuro to produce stark contrasts between light and shadow, and the interior features contemporary details such as a small table with a mirror, vial, and book.

The composition combines symbolic representation of a nightmare with the literal image of a dream, reflecting folklore about demons and night spirits. The painting’s erotic and haunting style marked a breakthrough for Fuseli, drawing both horrified fascination and commercial success, leading to multiple versions and widespread reproduction through engravings.

The Nightmare was painted by Henry Fuseli in 1781 and first exhibited at the Royal Academy of London in 1782. It was sold for twenty guineas and quickly gained fame through an engraving by Thomas Burke that circulated from January 1783 and earned its publisher over 500 pounds. The work is part of the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts and has been reproduced in at least three other versions, including one painted between 1790 and 1791 now housed at the Goethe-Haus in Frankfurt and another in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College.

Fuseli drew on folklore about nightmares, incubi, and the Germanic belief in mare‑riding, using a chiaroscuro effect to contrast the luminous figure of a sleeping woman with the darker reds, yellows, and ochres of the background. The painting combines a literal depiction of a nightmare with a symbolic representation of the dream, showing a woman draped over a bed, an incubus on her chest, and a horse’s head emerging from the curtains. Contemporary critics found the overt sexuality shocking and linked it to emerging ideas about the unconscious, while later psychoanalytic interpretations, including those of Sigmund Freud, saw the work as a representation of sublimated desire.

The primary version of The Nightmare is held by the Detroit Institute of Arts in the United States. The museum acquired the work in 1954. The painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy of London in 1782, where it generated significant public interest and critical reaction.

Following this initial showing, the work achieved widespread fame, leading Henry Fuseli to create at least three other versions of the composition. An engraving by Thomas Burke, based on the original, was published in January 1783 and circulated widely, further cementing the image's popularity. While the original canvas was sold for twenty guineas, the reproductive print generated over 500 pounds for its publisher.

Other versions of the subject are located at the Goethe-Haus in Frankfurt and the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College.

The Nightmare is widely regarded as a landmark of early Romanticism, its haunting, erotic imagery marking a breakthrough for Fuseli after years of unsuccessful submissions to the Royal Academy. First shown in 1782, it became his first commercial success and inspired at least three later painted versions, including one from 1790–91 now in Frankfurt's Goethe-Haus, plus a 1790 version at the Vassar College's Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. The image spread further through Thomas Burke's 1783 engraving, which earned its publisher John Raphael Smith more than 500 pounds, and was frequently parodied in political satire targeting figures such as Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Charles James Fox, and William Pitt.

The painting's overt sexuality unsettled contemporary critics and has since been read as anticipating later ideas about the unconscious. Art historian H. W. Janson identified the sleeper as Anna Landholdt, the niece of Fuseli's friend Johann Kaspar Lavater whose rejection of his marriage proposal is thought to have shaped the work. Marcia Allentuck, in Woman as Sex Object (1972), argued it depicts female orgasm, while Sigmund Freud reportedly kept an etched copy in his Vienna apartment. The painting's influence extended into Gothic literature, notably inspiring Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

The Nightmare became Fuseli's breakthrough work following its 1782 Royal Academy exhibition, and its cultural reach expanded rapidly thereafter. Thomas Burke's 1783 engraving, accompanied by a poem by Erasmus Darwin, circulated widely and earned the publisher John Raphael Smith more than 500 pounds, spreading the image across Europe. Fuseli himself produced at least three further versions, including a vertical-format variant of 1790–91 now in Frankfurt's Goethe-Haus.

The composition was parodied in political satire targeting figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte, Louis XVIII, Charles James Fox, and William Pitt, and was adapted by other artists, notably Nicolai Abraham Abildgaard in 1800, who added a second body to the scene. It also shaped Gothic literature, being cited as a likely source of inspiration for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

In the twentieth century, the painting became a touchstone for psychoanalytic readings of dreams and desire. Sigmund Freud owned an etched copy, which hung in his Vienna apartment, and later commentators have continued to invoke the work in discussions of sleep paralysis and the unconscious.

Created in 1781, this oil on canvas by Swiss painter Henry Fuseli depicts a nocturnal scene that quickly entered public consciousness. The work is housed in the Detroit Institute of Arts, where it continues to attract scholarly attention for its striking composition and unsettling atmosphere.