This painting, titled "Satan and Death with Sin Interfering" or "Satan : Le Péché : La Mort" in German, was painted by John Henry Fuseli, or Johann Heinrich Fussli in Germany. He painted this in 1779 after a lifetime of immigrating.
Fussli was originally born in Switzerland the second of eighteen and was always intended for the church. His father had produced many writings on the Christian painters of the day and because of this expected his firstborn son to attain the same level of fame as those that he wrote about. Fussli failed his father's dream when he outed a corrupt magistrate and was expelled from Switzerland. After a pilgrimage to Italy he changed his name to Fuseli began painting Christian-inspired artwork. He felt slighted and disillusioned by the large religion, so he began painting with Satan and nightmare-ish creatures as his subjects.
This painting depicts Satan and Death collaborating over what to do with human souls and in between them is Sin, which can be seen in the woman with the green snake. This painting is meant to be dark and evil in nature, with the hope found in the Sin. I think that was unexpected by me because I usually don't think of sin as a good idea, but in this picture it is the only thing that can redeem humans from their hellish fate. Fuseli often saw humans as perpetually doomed until they are redeemed by the absolving of their sins and for that reason actually found comfort in this picture.
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