Paolo and Francesca
Created by Alexander Munro
Date: 1852
Usually date of exhibition rather than production
Object class: sculpture
Object type: figure group
Material: stone - marble
Technique: carved
Description: A male and female sitting together, she has an open book on her lap, he is turned towards her, in readiness to kiss her lips or cheek.
Notes: The subject comes from Dante's 'Inferno'(V, 122-3). Francesca, engaged to be married against her will, falls in love with her fiance's younger brother Paola. When this is discovered, they are murdered. The sculpture shows the moment when, reading of the love of Lancelot for Guinevere, they are drawn to their first kiss. When the sculpture was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1852 (cat. no. 1340) the following quotation was give: 'One day we read etc.'
The plaster model for this sculpture was shown in the 1851 Great Exhibition (Sculpture Court no 41). This marble version was commissioned by William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98), later Prime Minster.
Makers, Owners and Exhibitors
Owned by Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
1960
Accession number: 1960P29. Purchased
Sources
Bmagic: Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery Collections
http://www.bmagic.org.uk/objects/1960P29 (accessed 2 September 2010)
Citing this record
'Paolo and Francesca', Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951, University of Glasgow History of Art and HATII, online database 2011 [http://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/object.php?id=ann_1283459121, accessed 26 Mar 2023]
