Dante Meditating on the "Divine Comedy"

1843

Jean-Jacques Feuchère

Associated Names
Jean-Jacques Feuchère

Artist, French, 1807 - 1852

This is a painting featuring ghostly figures and mythical creatures surrounding a central man. The man is dressed in a red robe with a red cap on his head, and he is seated on a stone slab, a lamp sitting on a surface next to him. He has peach skin, and his face is partially in shadow. Surrounding him are countless intertwined humans, animals, and creatures in shades of white and gray. Many of the people are so tightly intertwined that their limbs and bodies are only partially visible. Above the man, a creature with the head and torso of a human but the legs of a horse and the wings of a bat rears up. In the upper left-hand corner, several people in long dresses reach up towards a white star-like shape that casts light on them. Two men and a woman on the left stand next to the central man, looking down at him. At the bottom of the painting is a snake, its mouth open to expose its fangs.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    pen and brown ink with brown wash and watercolor over graphite, heightened with white gouache, on 3 joined sheets of laid paper

  • Credit Line

    Gift of the Christian Humann Foundation

  • Dimensions

    overall: 42.3 x 36.1 cm (16 5/8 x 14 3/16 in.)

  • Accession Number

    1996.128.14

More About this Artwork

Article:  Going through Hell? See Dante’s “The Divine Comedy” in Art

Travel with artists through Dante’s Nine Circles of Hell.


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Probably Feuchere sale, Paris, Hotel des Ventes Mobilières, 10 March 1853, no. 41); Christian Humann; The Christian Humann Foundation, Paris, 1981; gift to NGA, 1996.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2023

  • Going through Hell: The Divine Dante, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 2023.

Inscriptions

lower left in brown ink: JFeuchere 1843; upper center verso in pen and brown ink: Maturaque

Wikidata ID

Q64581250

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