Paolo and Francesca (from Dante's Inferno)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828 - Birchington 1882)
Category
Art / Drawings and watercolours
Date
circa 1846 - 1848
Materials
Pen and ink on paper
Measurements
280 x 230 mm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Wightwick Manor, West Midlands
NT 1287116
Caption
The doomed lovers Paolo and Francesca appear in the Renaissance poet Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321) La Divinia Commedia, Inferno Canto V (The Divine Comedy; Hell). Francesca had been engaged to the deformed Giancotto Malatesta but fell in love with his younger brother Paolo as they read together. Giancotto surprised them one day and stabbed them both to death and the pair were condemned to exist in a whirlwind in the second circle of hell. Rossetti's father had written a commentary on Dante Alighieri's poems and even named his son after him.
Summary
Pen and ink drawing on paper, Paolo and Francesca by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828 - Birchington 1882), circa 1846-48. The two lovers are seated together reading a book. The girl is in a high-backed chair and the man is facing her seated on a low stool. It illustrates the story of Paolo and Francesca who are mentioned in Dante's Inferno (Canto V, lines 123-133).
Provenance
Given by the artist to Alexander Munro (Inverness 1825 – Cannes 1871); by descent to his daughter-in-law Margaret Caroline Neaves, Mrs John Arthur Ruskin Munro in 1944; by descent to his grand-daughter Mrs Katherine MacDonald, by whom placed on permanent loan 1995; accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust for display at Wightwick Manor, 2017.
Marks and inscriptions
RA exhibition label pasted on backboard
Makers and roles
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (London 1828 - Birchington 1882), artist
References
Surtees 1971 Virginia Surtees, The Paintings and Drawings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882). A Catalogue Raisonné, 2 vols., Oxford 1971, no. 75E Jacobi and Finch 2023: Carol Jacobi and James Finch (eds.), The Rosettis, exh.cat. Tate Britain, London and Delaware Art Museum, 2023, no. 32, p. 30.