Oil on canvas, unlined: 23 x 30.5 cm. / 9 x 12 in.

Signed and dedicated, bottom left: Ary Scheffer à Pauline Viardot

Painted circa 1850

Provenance: Pauline Viardot (1821-1910); vente Viardot, Paris, 27 June 1910, no.15.

Exhibited: New Orleans Museum of Art, New York Stair Sainty Matthiesen, Cincinnati Taft Museum of Art, Romance and Chivalry: Literature and History reflected in early nineteenth century painting, June 1996 – February 1997, no 51, pp 132-133, 265; illus fig 92.

Related works : Les Ombres de Francesca da Rimini et de Paolo Malatesta Apparaissent a Dante et Virgil, 166 x 234cm, The Wallace Collection, London ; 171 x 239 cm, musée du Louvre, Paris.

Dante's damned lovers Paolo and Francesca, a subject with which Scheffer employed himself on and off for years, remains this artist's most iconic image. This intimately sized version is dedicated to Pauline Viardot (1821 -1900), a celebrated opera singer and friend/protegé of George Sand.  Mme. Viardot was the wife of Scheffer's old friend Louis Viardot (a writer, art critic and political figure), and became a close friend of the artist himself.  Pauline fell in love with the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev; they had a life-long affair. Scheffer’s painting was both a homage to their passion and a caution to his dear friend.