'The Baffled Devils Fighting', William Blake

Artwork details

Artist

William Blake (1757‑1827)

Title

The Baffled Devils Fighting

From Illustrations to Dante's 'Divine Comedy'

Date 1826-7, reprinted 1892

MediumLine engraving on paper

Dimensionsimage: 242 x 334 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the Art Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the the Art Fund 1919

Reference

A00007

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Display caption

In April 1827, Blake wrote to John Linnell, ‘I am too much attach’d to Dante to think much of anything else. I have... reduced the [drawing of] the Fighting devils ready for the Copper’. This is the image printed from Blake’s ‘copper’. Ciampolo, condemned to hell for accepting bribes, has escaped the clutches of the devils, causing one devil to turn ‘his talons on his comrade. O’er the dyke in grapple close they joine’d... and in the boiling lake both fell’.

This was the last of the seven Dante engravings which Blake worked on. It remained unfinished at his death.

September 2004