1943.430: Dante Seizing the Traitor Bocca by the Hair (from Dante's "Divine Comedy"); verso: Head of a Cardinal
DrawingsIn a barren white landscape, two figures in the foreground at right are trapped chest-deep in a hole. At center, a man in a long red robe tears at the hair of one of the trapped figures as another man behind him in a blue robe looks on. At left, behind the man in blue, a bearded man bites into the back of the head of a man crouching on the ground in front of him, as blood drips down the side of his face. The reverse side of this page shows a small sketch at lower right of a head in profile wearing a wide brimmed hat.
Identification and Creation
- Object Number
- 1943.430
- People
-
William Blake, British (London, England 1757 - 1827 London, England)
- Title
- Dante Seizing the Traitor Bocca by the Hair (from Dante's "Divine Comedy"); verso: Head of a Cardinal
- Other Titles
-
Alternate Title: Dante Tugging at Bocca's Hair
Series/Book Title: Dante, "The Divine Comedy" - Classification
- Drawings
- Work Type
- drawing
- Date
- 1824-1827
- Culture
- British
- Persistent Link
- https://hvrd.art/o/297625
Physical Descriptions
- Medium
- Watercolor, black ink, graphite, and black chalk on off-white antique laid paper; verso: graphite
- Dimensions
- 37 × 52.3 cm (14 9/16 × 20 9/16 in.)
- Inscriptions and Marks
-
- inscription: lr: HELL Canto 32
Provenance
- Recorded Ownership History
- Grenville Lindall Winthrop, New York, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943
Acquisition and Rights
- Credit Line
- Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
- Accession Year
- 1943
- Object Number
- 1943.430
- Division
- European and American Art
- Contact
- am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
- Permissions
-
THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.
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Publication History
- Agnes Mongan, "The Fogg Art Museum's Collection of Drawings", Harvard Library Bulletin, Harvard University (Cambridge, 1958), vol. 3, no. 2, March, pp. 5-9, p. 202
- Martin Butlin, The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1981), no. 812 (66)
- Charles H. Taylor and Patricia Finley, Images of the Journey in Dante's Divine Comedy, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT and London, England, 1997), p. 99, fig. 99 (color)
- David Bindman, William Blake: The Divine Comedy/Die göttliche Komödie/La divine comédie, Bibliothèque de l'Image (Paris, 2000), pl. 69 (color)
Related Objects
Verification Level
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