Divine Comedy - L'Enfer - Chant 17 - The Usurers - Woodcut - 118/4765 - "Collectors Set"

Art Historical Context

Salvador Dalí’s complete illustration of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is considered one of the most ambitious graphic undertakings of the twentieth century. The cycle comprises 100 images across Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso, executed using multiple print techniques.

In L’Enfer, Chant XVII, Dante and Virgil encounter Geryon, a creature associated with deception and fraud. After the encounter with the usurers, Virgil instructs Dante to mount Geryon’s back. The two then descend in a spiraling flight into Malebolge, the Eighth Circle of Hell, where the sins of fraud are punished.

The woodcut medium reinforces the canto’s central theme: sharp moral division beneath a deceptively calm surface. Carved line and bold contrast give the scene a stark, declarative force, transforming the descent into a visual emblem of risk, trust, and irreversible transition.

Authentication & Documentation

This artwork is accompanied by a structured Authentication Report, providing transparency and research-based documentation specific to this individual woodcut.

• Edition and numbering verification
• Medium and technique confirmation
• Research references related to the Divine Comedy series
• High-resolution photographic documentation

This approach supports informed collecting and responsible evaluation of Dalí’s graphic works.

Collecting Significance

Chant XVII is one of the most structurally important transition plates in the Inferno cycle, marking the shift from violence to fraud. Collectors often value this scene for its symbolism, its narrative turning point, and its visual potential within Dalí’s surreal language.

As a woodcut, the plate gains additional force through relief printing’s directness and contrast, making it a distinctive counterpart to etched interpretations of the Divine Comedy.