The story of the short and tragic love affair between Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini is told in Dante's Inferno, canto v: 127-138. Here, the deformed Lanciotto, brother of Paolo and husband to Francesca, is seen about to kill them as, fired by their reading of an Arthurian romance together, Paolo attempts a first kiss. The picture is one of a group of small, brightly coloured "troubadour" works with medieval or Renaissance subjects which Ingres painted, mainly between 1814 and 1820. There are several versions of it.

Inscriptions / Translations:  Signed I.I.: J. INGRES

Notes:  Exhibited: 'Ingres', Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, 1911, no. 25; 'Exposition centennale de l'art français', St Petersburg, 1911; 'Exhibition of French Art', National Museum, Copenhagen, 1917, no. 65; 'David and Ingres', Springfield Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, Mass., USA, 1939, no. 23; 'Exhibition to Commemorate the 7th Centenary of the Birth of Dante', Palazzo Venezia, Rome, 1965; 'In pursuit of perfection: the art of J.-A.-D. Ingres', J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, 1983, no. 9; Paris 1993; Ireland 2007; 'Ingres: The Artist and his Princes', Musee Conde, Chateau de Chantilly, 2023;

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