
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











