I did not come to know part II of 'Faust' until long after I made my illustrations, and even then only very superficially. It struck me as an ill-digested work, of little interest from the literary standpoint, but among those most calculated to inspire a painter owing to the mixture of characters and styles it contains... You asked what gave me the first idea of the Faust lithographs. I remember that about 1821 I saw the designs made by Retch [ Retzsch] and found them rather striking; but it was above all the performance of a dramatic opera on Faust that I saw in London in 1825 which stirred me to do something on the subject. The actor.... was a perfect Mephistopheles; he was fat, but that in no way diminished his nimbleness and his Satanic character.