Ugolino and His Sons at the MET, New York

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Dante's Divine Comedy has consistently been a favorite among artists in the realm of sculpture. The character Ugolino, who ignited people's imaginations and fears during the latter half of the 19th century, appears in Canto 33 of the Inferno. This intensely Romantic sculpture stems from the passage where Dante describes Ugolino's imprisonment in 1288 and subsequent death by starvation along with his offspring. Carpeaux depicts the moment when Ugolino, sentenced to die of starvation, succumbs to the temptation to devour his children and grandchildren, who cry out to him: "But when a faint ray entered our somber cell, each face lit up, and I saw in each one the aspect of my own. For grief was so intense that both hands I bit. Suddenly, they arose from the floor, thinking it was hunger, and exclaimed: 'Father, eat us, stay our suffering! You dressed our being in this sad flesh; now strip it all away.'" Carpeaux's visionary composition reflects his reverence for Michelangelo as well as his meticulous attention to anatomical realism. Ugolino and His Sons was completed in plaster in 1861, the final year of his residence at the French Academy in Rome. It generated a sensation in Rome, earning him numerous commissions. Upon returning to France, it was cast in bronze at the request of the French Ministry of Fine Arts and exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1863. Later, it was relocated to the gardens of the Tuileries, where it was displayed as a pendant to a bronze of Laocoön. This marble version was executed by Bernard under Carpeaux's guidance and completed on time for the Universal Exposition at Paris in 1867. The date inscribed on the marble refers to the original plaster model's completion. (image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art)