The object of criticism and caricatures, it was particularly disliked for Paolo's 'displeasing' attitude and the theatrical tone of the work.Entering the École des Beaux-Arts at the age of seventeen, Alexandre Cabanel achieved early success and became one of the most influential Academic artists of the nineteenth century, along with William Bouguereau and Jean-Léon Gérôme. After winning the Prix de Rome in 1845, he exhibited regularly at the Salon and his 1863 submission, La naissance de Vénus (Musée d’Orsay, Paris, a study for which sold in these rooms, February 1, 2019, for $175,000), brought him international fame and success and has since become an icon of nineteenth century painting. Yet, the painting was not unanimously recieved when it was exhibited at the Salon in 1870. A student at the Villa Medici in Rome, he later won several medals at the Salon, became a lecturer at the School of Fine Arts and a member of the Institute. His brilliant official career is proof of that. The book that has dropped from Francesca's hands is a reminder that the lovers were reading Lancelot, a story of courtly love, at the time of the murder, while the murderer hidden behind a thick hanging is still clutching his bloody sword.Ĭabanel is one of the main representatives of an academic style much appreciated during the Second Empire. The composition is scholarly, the painting smooth and the drawing precise care has been taken over the iconographic details.
This painting exhibits all the typical elements of the classical tradition which Alexandre Cabanel stayed true to.
Her husband caught them when they were exchanging their first kiss and killed them with a single swipe of his sword. Francesca da Rimini, whose father had forcibly married her to Lanciotto Malatesta, fell in love with her handsome brother-in-law, Paolo. This tragic scene was inspired by an incident that occurred in Rimini in Italy in the mid-thirteenth century and was put into verse by Dante in Canto V of The Divine Comedy.
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