Ixion Worshipping Hera Disguised as a Cloud

Fuseli enjoyed flaunting his classical learning. Here, he illustrates the obscure Greek myth of Ixion and Nephele. Out of pity, Zeus invited the accursed Ixion, king of the Lapiths, to dine with the gods on Olympus. While there, Ixion lusted after Zeus’s wife, Hera. Learning of this insult, Zeus tricked Ixion into coupling with a cloud in the shape of Hera (called Nephele, from the Greek word for cloud). The offspring of this union was Centaurus, who produced the race of centaurs.

There is a second, slightly different, version of the same subject on the drawing’s reverse.

(Eccentric Visions, 2015)