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Paolo and Francesca
Paolo and Francesca
Paolo and Francesca
Paolo and Francesca
Paolo and Francesca
Paolo and Francesca

Image credit: National Trust Images

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Notes

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A painted plaster relief of the two lovers from Dante's 'Divine Comedy' doomed to be swept along on the wind in the second circle of hell. The characters are based on two real figures, Francesca da Rimini (1255–1285) and Paolo Malatesta (c.1246–1285), brother of Giancotto Malatesta of Rimini, to whom Francesca was betrothed. Giancotto stabbed the two lovers to death.

There was apparently another version of Paolo and Francesca, made for the Marquess of Landsdowne in 1837, reported as being by the artist's father, Sir Richard Westmacott II. The work was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1838 was said to be marble. This relief shows affinities to the elder Westmacott's figures of Venus and Apollo in the Dream of Horace, 1823 (Petworth, NT 486415).

National Trust, Nostell Priory

near Wakefield

Title

Paolo and Francesca

Date

1838

Medium

plaster

Measurements

H 122 x W 75 x D (?) cm

Accession number

959561

Work type

Relief

Signature/marks description

bottom right of main panel: R. WESTMACOTT JUN. F. AUGT. 27TH 1838

Inscription description

inscription at the bottom of the plaster frame: 'PAOLO E FRANCESCA / Que duo che insieme vanno / E pajon si al vento esser leggieri / Nulla sperenza li conforta mai / Non che di posa ma di minor pena.' and, below and to the right: 'Dante Inferno Canto 5.' They are two non-consecutive couplets from the Inferno: Canto V:74–75 [those two, who go together / And seem upon the wind to be so light] and Canto V:44–45 [No hope doth comfort them for evermore, / Not of repose, but even of lesser pain] (Longfellow English edition).

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National Trust, Nostell Priory

Doncaster Road, Nostell, near Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF4 1QE England

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