This is an image from Graphical and literary illustrations of Fonthill abbey, Wiltshire : with heraldical and genealogical notices of the Beckford family. It is of the house built in the Gothic style by the English Gothic writter William Beckford.
A man in a vault has removed the slab covering an embalmed body and reads into a large book with a triumphant look on his face. The drawing is very dark and eerie.
This is the description from The MET: The subject of this intensely Romantic work is derived from canto XXXIII of Dante's Inferno, which describes how the Pisan traitor Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, his sons, and his grandsons were imprisoned in…
According to the traditional interpretation, it depicts the Greek myth of the Titan Cronus, who, fearing that he would be overthrown by one of his children, ate each one upon their birth. It depicts the terrifying truth of the gothic period where…