The Barque of Dante, Eugène Delacroix
Eugène Delacroix·The Barque of Dante·1822·Oil on canvas·Musée du Louvre, Paris↓

Eugène Delacroix French, 1798 – 1863

The Barque of Dante, 1822

Your taste…

Dante, in a red hood, recoils as the damned claw at the boat carrying him and Virgil across the Styx toward the burning city of Dis, a scene from Canto VIII of the Inferno. It was the young Delacroix's first Salon picture. Gros praised it as 'a chastened Rubens', and the state bought it for 2,000 francs.

Look closer

Water drops on the bodies of the damned are separate touches of pure red, yellow, green and white, an early sign of Delacroix's thinking about colour.

Looks like this

Compared by a vision model

Shares its spirit