Art, Symbol & Imagination
Virgil Carries Dante down the Steep Bank
The travellers descend beneath a sheer cliff as winged pursuers crowd the space above their route. Dante fears that the humiliated devils will pursue them, and Virgil takes him in his arms to escape into the next ditch. The poem compares the guide’s response to a mother carrying her child from a fire. Doré uses the abrupt descent and the creatures overhead to make the urgency visible. The pursuers cannot leave their appointed region. Peripheral pencil writing and the printed caption belong to the supplied scan’s margins and are excluded from the artwork crop; the source remains unchanged.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "Virgil Carries Dante down the Steep Bank" [editorial title]. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri. New Edition, undated supplied scan, undated edition, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 162. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/inferno-dore-155
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Full original plate and caption individually inspected; exact neighbouring canto read. Editorial title. Source tone and intrinsic damage retained; rotation applies only to Gallery derivatives.
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Gustave Doré (design). Virgil Carries Dante down the Steep Bank. Dante's Inferno. Scan leaf 162. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/inferno-dore-155