Dante and Virgil (Dante et Virgile)

Dante and Virgil (Dante et Virgile) is a distinctive print created by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in 1858. This work utilizes the unique and experimental photographic printing process known as cliché-verre (French for "glass negative"). During the 1850s, Corot, known primarily as a painter of landscapes, briefly embraced this nascent technology, which allowed artists to blend the spontaneity of drawing with the reproducibility typically associated with photography. Rather than relying on traditional etching or lithography, Corot developed the image directly onto a glass plate coated with an opaque ground, often collodion. He then used a needle or stylus to scratch away the coating, allowing light to pass through specific areas. This plate was subsequently used like a large photographic negative to produce prints on sensitized paper.

The subject matter draws upon classical literature, depicting the Roman poet Virgil guiding the Italian poet Dante Alighieri through a dramatically rendered, shadowy terrain, likely inspired by Dante's Inferno. This classical narrative provided Corot with a foundation for exploring heightened atmospheric effects. Created during the dynamic period of 1851 to 1875, Dante and Virgil demonstrates the artist's enduring interest in narrative themes even as he pioneered modern techniques. Corot often reserved the cliché-verre medium for atmospheric or allegorical scenes, exploiting the medium’s tonal qualities that yield results distinct from conventional graphic processes.

Though classified formally as a print, the unique production method of the cliché-verre makes each resulting image highly individualized. The surviving examples of this process are crucial documentation of the intersection between drawing and early photography in mid-nineteenth-century French art. The resulting dramatic contrasts and deep shadows in this 1858 work exemplify Corot's skill in manipulating light even on a small scale. This significant work by Corot is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, forming an important part of the museum’s holdings of early public domain prints.