image index
previous image next image






Dante Running from the Three Beasts   1824-27
pen, ink and watercolour over pencil (NGV 3)
Felton Bequest, 1920
988-3
National Gallery of Victoria

Inferno I, 1-90. Dante in the middle of the journey through life, comes to a dark wood and loses his way. After a night full of fear he sets out again at dawn but is distracted from his way by a leopard (representing for Dante worldly pleasure, or Florence), a lion (pride, or the Royal House of France) and a wolf (avarice, or the Papal See). Fleeing from these he encounters Virgil.

(c)1999 National Gallery of Victoria