''Dante and Virgil'' is an 1850 oil on canvas painting by the French academic painter

William-Adolphe Bouguereau William-Adolphe Bouguereau (; 30 November 1825 – 19 August 1905) was a French academic painter. In his realistic genre paintings, he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female ...

. It is on display at the

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. The painting depicts a scene from Dante's ''

Divine Comedy The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature and ...

'', which narrates a journey through Hell by

Dante Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

and his guide

Virgil Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...

. In the scene the author and his guide are looking on as two damned souls are entwined in eternal combat. One of the souls is an alchemist and heretic named Capocchio. He is being bitten on the neck by the trickster

Gianni Schicchi () is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's ''Divine Comedy''. The work is the third and final part of Puccin ...

, who had used fraud to claim another man's inheritance. It was Bougereau's third and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to win the coveted

Prix de Rome The Prix de Rome () or Grand Prix de Rome was a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663 during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them t ...

, even though he had submitted a work that he knew would appeal to the judges. He did however succeed in his efforts later in the year when ''

Shepherds Find Zenobia on the Banks of the Araxes ''Shepherds Find Zenobia on the Banks of the Araxes'' is an 1850 oil on canvas painting by William Bouguereau, now in the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Its subject is drawn from Tacitus's '' Histories'' (XII.51), in which Rhadami ...

'' won the consolation second prize of the year. Pierre Daix, ''Pour une histoire culturelle de l'art moderne: de David à Cézanne'', Odile Jacob, 1998 ()

References

External links

* 1850 paintings Paintings in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay Paintings by William-Adolphe Bouguereau Nude art Cultural depictions of Dante Alighieri Cultural depictions of Virgil Works based on Inferno (Dante) Demons in art {{19C-painting-stub