Book Title: Dante's Inferno; Translated by the Rev. Henry Francis Cary, M.A. from the original of Dante Alighieri, and illustrated with the designs of M. Gustave Doré.

Author: Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321

Image Title: Charon

Description: Here the vantage point is one and the same with Dante, as the viewer behold’s Charon’s approach over the Acheron. Dante borrows freely from Virgil’s own description of the infernal boatman, whose job it is to ferry unfortunate souls into the deeper reaches of the underworld. Much as Virgil did in his Aeneid Dante and Doré both depict him as an aged man ‘hoary white with eld.’ Doré expresses this description visually by giving him sunken features, wildly tangled hair and a heroic physique characteristic of the Grand Manner. The engraver, Adolph Francois Pannemaker (1822-1900), has placed his signature at the bottom right, while the artist Gustave Doré (1832-1888) has placed his signature at the bottom left.

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