In the biblical story of the Massacre of the Innocents, Herod the Great (73–ca. 4 BC) commanded his men to murder all male children under the age of two near Bethlehem for fear of losing power to the recently born Christ, the foretold king of the Jews. In this devastating scene, a mother, surrounded by the bodies of murdered sons, tugs her hair and, propelled by rage, lunges toward a hooded figure. Coupling precise lines and diagonal hatch marks with a looser application of gray wash, Henry Fuseli emphasizes the sculptural presence of these figures. Drawn in Rome in 1771, the work’s physical and emotional tension may derive from the artist’s study of the muscular and expressive figures in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes (1508–1512).