''Dante and Beatrice'' is a painting dated 1883 by the artist

Henry Holiday Henry Holiday (17 June 183915 April 1927) was a British historical genre and landscape painter, stained-glass designer, illustrator, and sculptor. He is part of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art. Life Early years and training Holiday was born ...

that is on display in the

Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History of the Gallery The Walker Art Gallery's collection ...

, in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, England. It is considered to be Holiday's most important painting. It is executed in

oil on canvas Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest o ...

, measuring by and was purchased by the gallery in 1884. When he died in 1927, Holiday was described as "the last

Pre-Raphaelite The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (later known as the Pre-Raphaelites) was a group of English painters, poets, and art critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Michael Rossetti, James ...

." Many of

Dante Gabriel Rossetti Gabriel Charles Dante Rossetti (12 May 1828 – 9 April 1882), generally known as Dante Gabriel Rossetti (), was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator and member of the Rossetti family. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhoo ...

's paintings, including '' Dante's Dream'', had as their subject the Italian poet

Dante Alighieri Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...

, and this interest is the likely inspiration for Holiday's painting. It is based on Dante's 1294 autobiographical work ''

La Vita Nuova ''La Vita Nuova'' (; Italian for "The New Life") or ''Vita Nova'' (Latin title) is a text by Dante Alighieri published in 1294. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and ve ...

'' which describes his love for

Beatrice Portinari Beatrice "Bice" di Folco Portinari (; 1265 – 8 or 19 June 1290) was an Italian woman who has been commonly identified as the principal inspiration for Dante Alighieri's '' Vita Nuova'', and is also identified with the Beatrice who acts as ...

. Dante concealed his love by pretending to be attracted to other women. The painting depicts an incident when Beatrice, having heard gossip relating to this, refuses to speak to him. The event is shown as Beatrice and two other women walk past the Santa Trinita Bridge in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

. Beatrice wears a white dress and walks beside her friend Monna Vanna, with Beatrice's maidservant slightly behind. In 1860 Holiday had painted another scene from ''La Vita Nuova'' that showed a meeting between Dante and Beatrice when they were children in the garden of Beatrice's father, and in 1875 he painted a portrait of Dante. In addition to the completed painting of ''Dante and Beatrice'', the Walker Art Gallery owns three sketches he made for it. Two of these depict all the figures, while the third is of Dante alone. Holiday had also made nude plaster statuettes of the two main female figures to which he later added clothing. These are also owned by the gallery. The model for Beatrice was Eleanor Butcher, Milly Hughes modelled for Monna Vanna, and the model for the maidservant was Kitty Lushington. Holiday was anxious that the painting should be historically accurate and in 1881 travelled to Florence to carry out research. He discovered that in the 13th century the Lungarno, the street on the north side of the River Arno between the

Ponte Vecchio The Ponte Vecchio ("Old Bridge", ) is a Middle Ages, medieval stone closed-spandrel Circular segment, segmental arch bridge over the Arno River, in Florence, Italy, Florence, Italy. The only bridge in Florence spared from destruction during the ...

(seen in the background) and the Ponte Santa Trinita, was paved with bricks and that there were shops in the area; these are shown in the painting. He also learned that the Ponte Vecchio had been destroyed in a flood in 1235. It was being rebuilt between 1285 and 1290 and in the painting it is shown covered in scaffolding.

References

{{Dante Alighieri 1883 paintings Pre-Raphaelite paintings Paintings in the collection of the Walker Art Gallery Paintings based on works by Dante Alighieri Cultural depictions of Dante Alighieri Birds in art Water in art Bridges in art Works based on La Vita Nuova