This drawing takes its inspiration from a scene in Part One of Goethe’s dark and tragic drama ‘Faust’, which was first published in 1808. The impact of this work on writers, musicians and artists throughout Europe was vast. This drawing belongs to the early period in Paton’s career when he made his great Shakespearean fairy paintings (NG 293 and NG 294). Here, as in those paintings, he delights in giving form to grotesque and otherworldly characters. Paton considered this detailed drawing to be a finished work in its own right. He exhibited it, accompanied by a lengthy quote from Goethe’s text describing the moment when Faust is lured by the image of a beautiful woman conjured in a magic mirror.