Image scanned and color-corrected by Pat Cagney.

Ugolino and His Sons

ArtistStudio of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (French, 1827-1875)

Dateca. 1870

MediumBronze

DimensionsOverall: 19 in. (48.3 cm)

ClassificationsEuropean art

Credit LineGift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.

Object number71.2066

Terms

Bronze
Paris

Collections

European Art before 1945

On View

Not on view

DescriptionThis is a small bronze piece. It features four boys and a man: at the apex sits Ugolino overwhelmed by despair as his children and grandchildren expire at his feet. The figures are intensely suffering: the father is seated, with his sons surrounding, which creates an imposing pyramid of five tightly interlocking figures.

Label TextStudio of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux French, 1827–1875 Ugolino and His Sons, ca. 1870 Bronze From madness and murder to torture and even cannibalism, the Romantics reveled in the macabre and taboo. Inspired by a story in Dante’s Inferno, this sculpture recounts the tale of the Italian nobleman Ugolino de’Gherardeschi, who was imprisoned for betrayal and starved to death with his sons and grandsons. As his children died around him, they begged him to eat their bodies so he might live. Ugolino eventually gave in to his hunger and devoured their bodies. This sculpture compresses the horror of Dante’s narrative into a pyramid of five tightly interlocking figures. At the apex, the overwrought Ugolino gnaws on his hands. Gift of Walter P. Chrysler Jr. 71.2066