Description
As Richard Greenough did in his portrait of Thomas H. Perkins, on view nearby, John Adams Jackson chose to depict the eminent Italian poet Dante Alighieri in profile and framed in a way that suggests and enhances the subjects position within literary history. The nineteenth century witnessed a renaissance of interest in Dante, and Boston/ Cambridge became a veritable hotbed of Dante studies. As Italys greatest poet whose work was a harbinger of the soon-to-flourish Renaissance, Dante was a natural subject for the neoclassical sculptor.
Details
- Work Date:
- ca. 1865
- Medium:
- Marble
- Credit Line:
- Bequest of Jane M. Jackson, 1916 (UH60)