Background
In a letter to his sister, Madame Verninac, written in 1821, Delacroix speaks of his desire to paint for the Salon the following year, and to ‘gain a little recognition’. In April 1822 he wrote to his friend Charles Soulier that he had been working hard and non-stop for two and a half months to precisely that end. The Salon opened on April 24, 1822 and Delacroix’s painting was exhibited under the title Dante et Virgile conduits par Phlégias, traversent le lac qui entoure les murailles de la ville infernale de Dité. The intense labour that was required to complete this painting in time left Delacroix weak and in need of recuperation.
Critics expressed a range of opinions about The Barque of Dante. One of the judges at the Salon, Étienne-Jean Delécluze, was uncomplimentary, calling the work ‘a real daub’ (une vraie tartouillade). Another judge, Antoine-Jean Gros, thought highly of it, describing it a ‘chastened Rubens’. An anonymous reviewer in Le Miroir expected Delacroix to become a ‘distinguished colourist’. One particularly favourable piece of criticism from up-and-coming lawyer Adolphe Thiers received wide circulation in the liberal periodical Le Constitutionnel.
In the summer of 1822, the French State purchased the painting for 2000 Francs, and moved it to the Musée du Luxembourg. Delacroix was delighted on hearing the news, although he feared the piece would be less admired for being viewed at close quarters. Some two year later he revisited the painting, reporting that it gave him much pleasure, but describing it as being insufficiently vigorous; a deficiency he had identified in the painting he was working on at the time, The Massacre at Chios. The painting was moved in 1874—eleven years after the death of the artist—to its present location, the Musée du Louvre.
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