A Scene from 'The Wife of Bath's Tale' (from Geoffrey Chaucer's, 'Canterbury Tales') (recto); Falstaff in the Laundry Basket mocked by Five Women (?) (verso)

Fuseli's 1812 scene from Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale — depicting an old hag transformed into a beautiful young woman who provides the answer to the knight's quest — belongs to his extensive engagement with medieval English literature alongside his better-known Shakespeare and Milton subjects. The verso scene of Falstaff in the laundry basket places this double-sided canvas in the context of his ongoing literary illustration projects. Fuseli painted these Chaucer subjects with the same psychological intensity he brought to Renaissance epic — treating medieval popular literature as worthy of the same imaginative investment as Milton.

Fuseli's figure style in this late work retains his characteristic elongation and theatrical pose. The transformation subject allows him to place a beautiful ideal figure at the center — his most characteristic motif. The handling in a late work like this shows some simplification of his earlier dramatic chiaroscuro but maintains his distinctive figure vocabulary.