Ugolino
19th century
Medium
Plaster, painted black
Dimensions
Overall: 21 3/16 × 14 × 11 in. (53.8 × 35.6 × 27.9 cm)
Classification
Sculpture
Culture
French
Department
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Anonymous Gift, 1945
Accession Number
45.69
Tags
Art Historical Context
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux's *Ugolino* (19th century) is a poignant plaster sculpture, painted black for dramatic effect, capturing a harrowing moment from Dante Alighieri's *Infer*. The work depicts Ugolino della Gherardesca, a 13th-century Pisan noble condemned to starve in a tower with his sons, inspired by Canto XXXIII where desperation blurs the line between paternal love and primal survival. Carpeaux, a leading French sculptor of the Romantic Realist movement, masterfully conveys anguish through twisted forms and expressive faces, blending classical anatomy with emotional intensity. Measuri...
About the Artist
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux · 1827–1875
Carpeaux's exuberant work was a decisive break from Neoclassical art. He won the Prix de Rome in 1854 and received many portrait bust commissions from the court. His most famous sculpture group is 'La Danse' (1869) made for the Paris Opéra. So bold is its message of bacchanalian revelry that it was vandalized in protest. French artist.