Line engraving on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Art Fund
Illustrations to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/william-blake-39" aria-label="More by William Blake" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">William Blake</a>
Baffled Devils Fighting
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the Art Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the Art Fund 1919
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
animals: features
architecture
causeway
characters
cliff
Dante
Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Inferno’
devil
fighting
flying
group
groups
Hell
Hell
Judaeo-Christian imagery
landscape
literature (not Shakespeare)
literature and fiction
male
man
mountain
mythical, religious, fictional
nudes
people
places
religion and belief
sea
seascapes and coasts
townscapes / man-made features
universal religious imagery
Virgil
wave
wing
<p>In April 1827, Blake wrote to John Linnell, ‘I am too much attach’d to Dante to think much of anything else. I have... reduced the [drawing of] the Fighting devils ready for the Copper’. This is the image printed from Blake’s ‘copper’. Ciampolo, condemned to hell for accepting bribes, has escaped the clutches of the devils, causing one devil to turn ‘his talons on his comrade. O’er the dyke in grapple close they joine’d... and in the boiling lake both fell’.</p><p>This was the last of the seven Dante engravings which Blake worked on. It remained unfinished at his death.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
paper print line engraving
29 October 2024 – 30 September 2025
2025-09-30
30 October 2024 – 2 February 2025
2025-02-02
2024-10-30
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
1 September 2025 – 31 January 2026
2026-01-31
2025-09-01
Museum of Fine Arts (Budapest, Hungary)
1 March 2026 – 31 August 2026
2026-08-31
2026-03-01
External
2024-10-29
William Blake and the Age of Romantic Fantasy: British Art & Imagination
Loan-out
The Baffled Devils Fighting
image: 242 × 334 mm
support: 272 × 348 mm
support, secondary: 410 × 564 mm
Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a>, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the <a href="/search?gid=999999968" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Art Fund</a> 1919
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    In April 1827, Blake wrote to John Linnell,  ‘I am too much attach’d to Dante to think much      of anything else. I have... reduced the [<a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> of] the Fighting      devils ready for the Copper’. This is the      image printed from Blake’s ‘copper’. Ciampolo, condemned to hell for accepting bribes, has escaped the clutches of the devils, causing one devil to turn ‘his talons on his comrade. O’er the dyke in grapple close they      joine’d... and      in the boiling lake both fell’.  
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<div>
    This was the last of the seven Dante <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engravings</span></a> which      Blake worked on. It remained unfinished at his death.  </div>

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2004-09-08T00:00:00
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<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-baffled-devils-fighting-a00007" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00007</span></a> [from] <b>Illustrations to Dante's <i>Divine Comedy</i>: Engravings</b> 1826–7/1892</p>
<p>A 00005–11 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-circle-of-the-lustful-francesca-da-rimini-the-whirlwind-of-lovers-a00005" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00005</span></a>-<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-dante-striking-against-bocca-degli-abati-a00011" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>A00011</span></a>; <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-dante-and-virgil-penetrating-the-forest-n03351" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03351</span></a>-<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-dante-in-the-empyrean-drinking-at-the-river-of-light-n03370" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03370</span></a>; <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-the-circle-of-the-lustful-francesca-da-rimini-the-whirlwind-of-lovers-t01950" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T01950</span></a>-<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/blake-dante-striking-against-bocca-degli-abati-t01956" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T01956</span></a>; complete]
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<br/>Seven line engravings on india paper laid on drawing paper, each approx. 240×335 (9 1/2×13 1/4)
<br/>Purchased with the assistance of a special grant from the National Gallery and donations from the National Art-Collections Fund, Lord Duveen and others, and presented through the National Art-Collections Fund 1919
<br/>PROVENANCE John Linnell; his heirs, sold Christie's 15 March 1918 (in 148, with the 102 watercolour illustrations to Dante) £7,665 bt Martin for the donors
<br/>LITERATURE Russell <i>Engravings</i>
1912, pp.115–8 no.34; Keynes <i>Bibiliography</i> 1921, pp.182–5 no.56; Keynes <i>Engravings</i> 1950, pp.16–17; Roe 1953, pp.4–6, 41–2, 65, 96, 97, 108, 110, 116–7, 127–8, series repr. pls.10E, 41E, 42E, 51E, 53E, 58E and 65E; Keynes <i>Writings</i> 1957, pp.873, 876–7, 879; Ruthven Todd, <i>Blake's Dante Plates</i>, 1968 (reprinted with additions from <i>Book Collecting &amp; Library Monthly</i>, VI, 1968, pp.164–71, itself based on a letter to <i>The Times Literary Supplement</i> 29 August 1968, p.928); Bentley <i>Blake Records</i> 1969, pp.315–6; Bentley <i>Blake Books</i> 1977, pp.544–6 no.448; Bindman <i>Graphic Works</i> 1978, p.487 nos.647–53, series repr.plus full-size details; Essick <i>Printmaker</i> 1981, pp.78–9, 250–4
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<p>This is the first of two sets in the Tate Gallery of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> taken from the original plates. Altogether four printings have been done, two while the plates belonged to the Linnell family and two while they belonged to Lessing J. Rosenwald. In a ‘List of John Linnell Senior's Letters and Papers’ (in the Ivimy Collection) Linnell's son John Linnell Jr wrote that, following a few proofs taken by Blake himself, his father had ‘had India proofs taken (all disposed of)’; the accounts and day books of Dickson &amp; Ross show that this was in 1838. John Linnell Jr goes on to say that after his father's death fifty further copies, in ‘india on <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a> <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>’, were printed by Holdgate; the draft of a letter from the same writer to Bernard Quaritch of 6 May 1892 (also in the Ivimy Collection) implies that this second printing was about to be made. As all of the 1838 printing was ‘disposed of’ it was presumably one of the later series that was acquired for the Tate Gallery in the Linnell sale of 1918. Of what seem to be Blake's original proofs there is a complete set of one <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/proof" title="Glossary definition for 'Proof'"><span>proof</span></a> for each <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> in the British Museum and individual proofs elsewhere. The plates have passed, with the Rosenwald Collection, to the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
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<br/>The subject of each <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/e/engraving" title="Glossary definition for 'Engraving'"><span>engraving</span></a> was identified on a label pasted to the cover of the 1838 issue that reads as follows:
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<p>BLAKE'S ILLUSTRATIONS OF DANTE. /<i>Seven Plates, designed and engraved by</i> W. BLAKE, <i>Author of ‘Illustrations of / the Book of Job,’ &amp;c. &amp;c.</i> /Price £2.2s. India Paper./—/ PLATE I./ ... and like a corse fell to the ground./ HELL; Canto v.line 137. / PLATE II./....seiz'd on his arm, / And mangled bore away the sinewy part. / HELL; Canto xxii. line 70. / PLATE III./ .... so turn'd / His talons on his comrade. / HELL; Canto xxii. line 135./ PLATE IV. / ...lo! a serpent with six feet / Springs forth on one, / HELL; Canto xxv. line 45./ PLATE V. / He ey'd the serpent and the serpent him. / HELL; Canto xxv. line 82. / PLATE VI. /... Then two I mark'd, that sat Propp'd gainst each other, /HELL; Canto xxix, line 71. / PLATE VII./ ‘Wherefore dost bruise me?’ weeping he / exclaim'd. /HELL; Canto xxxii.line 79. / CARY'S DANTE.
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<p>The first record of Blake working on the engravings comes in a letter by him to Linnell of 2 July 1826, in which he wrote that he was coming to stay with him in Hampstead bringing, ‘besides our necessary change of apparel, Only My Book of Drawings from Dante &amp; one Plate shut up in the Book’. On 25 April 1827 Blake wrote to Linnell to say that ‘I have Proved the Six Plates, &amp; reduced the Fighting devils for the Copper’. Blake's death on 12 August 1827 prevented any further work on the engravings, and ‘The Baffled Devils Fighting’ is noticeably incomplete; Blake might, of course, have intended to work further on the other plates as well.
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<br/>These engravings were formerly inventoried as nos.3371 i–viii.
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<br/><span>A00007</span> <b>The Baffled Devils Fighting</b>
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<br/>Engraving 242×334 (9 1/2×13 3/16); platemark 280×357 (11×14)
<br/>EXHIBITED Tate Gallery 1978 (326, repr.)
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<p><i>Inferno</i> XXII, 133–140. After Ciampolo's escape the devils Alichino and Calabrina fall to fighting each other while their companions watch from the shore; Dante and Virgil retire in the distance. The original <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> is in the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham (Butlin 1981, no.812 <i>42</i>, repr.Roe 1953, pl.42, Klonsky 1980, pl.44 in colour and Gizzi 1983, pl.44).</p>
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<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin, <i>William Blake 1757-1827</i>, Tate Gallery Collections, V, London 1990
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Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults animals: features architecture causeway characters cliff Dante Dante, ‘Divine Comedy: Inferno’ devil fighting flying group groups Hell Hell Judaeo-Christian imagery landscape literature and fiction literature (not Shakespeare) male man mountain mythical, religious, fictional nudes people places religion and belief sea seascapes and coasts townscapes / man-made features universal religious imagery Virgil wave wing