Art, Symbol & Imagination
Plutus Recoils before the Travellers
A broad-bodied figure crouches among the rocks while the two travellers stand together beyond him beside a pale, narrow passage. Virgil answers the alarm of Plutus at the beginning of the fourth circle and insists that the travellers’ passage has higher permission. The guardian occupies the foreground, yet his bent body and turned face suggest a resistance being overcome. Pale rock behind the poets draws attention to the route that remains open. The caption supplies Virgil’s rebuke. Doré’s human-shaped guardian follows this particular infernal episode; the picture does not settle every classical identification of Plutus.
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Citation
Gustave Doré (design). "Plutus Recoils before the Travellers" [editorial title]. In Dante's Inferno, Dante Alighieri. New Edition, undated supplied scan, undated edition, Thompson & Thomas. Source scan leaf 63. Lumitheca. /gallery/image/inferno-dore-56
Source details
Editorial title and description. Source details from the Library catalogue.
Full original plate and caption visually inspected. Editorial title; original scan tone and intrinsic damage retained. Sideways plates rotated in the Gallery derivative only.
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Gustave Doré (design). Plutus Recoils before the Travellers. Dante's Inferno. Scan leaf 63. Lumitheca. https://lumitheca.com/gallery/image/inferno-dore-56