In 1782, patrons of the Royal Academy were both horrified and fascinated by the latest submission: <em>The Nightmare</em>, by Henry Fuseli. The voyeuristic piece features a sleeping woman, limbs outstretched. An incubus sits upon her chest, peering menacingly at the viewer, and a strange, wild-eyed horse lingers intrusively in the background. Fuseli’s painting draws upon old Germanic tales of demons that possessed women sexually, as they lay sleeping. Fuseli manages to successfully conjure up the image of a nightmare within the disturbingly disjointed scene. The chiaroscuro gives the piece an unsettling, eerie glow: the woman’s flesh is luminous against the background of her darkened chamber. <br><br>To critics, the inspiration for the painting was unclear, with varying interpretations, including speculations that the painting reflected Fuseli’s own dark fantasies. He was attributed with saying that <blockquote>One of the most unexplored regions of art are [<em>sic</em>] dreams.</blockquote> It is argued that the earthly muse behind the painting was a young woman called Anna Landholdt, who inspired Fuseli’s feelings of unrequited lust. She is depicted as the helpless woman and he the incubus that corrupts her. <br><br>Despite the initial shock, Fuseli’s sensational painting was a remarkable success. It was hugely influential in the culture of the period, and sparked later imitations, such as <em>The Covent Garden Nightmare</em> (1784) by the political cartoonist, Thomas Rowlandson. Fuseli’s work was arguably the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s <em>Frankenstein</em> (1818)<sup> </sup>, and the image has continued to whet the appetite for gothic horror in film and literature since. <br>