Minos, Judge of the Damned — Gustave Doré (Dante's Inferno, 1861)

The judge of Hell, coiling his tail to seal each sentence. Crowned and seen from behind, a colossal Minos fills the foreground, his serpent tail wrapped around his massive back. Above him, along a dark wall of rock, bat-winged demons drag a tangle of naked souls towards the abyss. Doré never shows his face: all the menace lies in the muscles, the coils and the shadows.

At the entrance to the second circle, Dante meets Minos, the legendary king of Crete turned into the judge of the dead (Inferno, Canto V). Every soul confesses its sins before him, and he wraps his tail around himself as many times as the number of the circle it is condemned to. Then the sinner is hurled down.

Why it works on your wall

• Dark and dramatic: deep blacks and a single pale body for a library, a study or a dark-academia interior
• A story on the wall: the first great monster of the Inferno, a conversation piece for every Dante reader
• Framing tip: a black frame with a wide white mat brings out its contrasts

Doré's Divine Comedy

Gustave Doré (1832–1883) was 23 when he began illustrating Dante. No publisher would risk such a lavish book, so he paid for the Inferno himself; it appeared with Hachette in 1861 and sold out at once. Purgatorio and Paradiso followed in 1868, bringing the whole Divine Comedy to 135 plates. Doré drew straight onto blocks of boxwood, and a team of master engravers cut his lines into the wood: hence the velvety blacks and the light that seems to come from nowhere.

• Artist: Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
• Work: illustration for Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto V
• Date: 1861
• Technique: wood engraving
• Literary source: Dante Alighieri, Inferno

Your print

• Restored from a high-definition scan of the original engraving, keeping its deep blacks and silver greys
• Printed in Europe on thick archival matte paper, FSC certified
• From A4 to A0, plus 40×60, 50×70, 60×90 and 70×100 cm and 12×18 to 27×40 inch sizes, all made for standard frames
• Free shipping, no minimum order. Shipped rolled in a sturdy tube

Pair it with Lucifer, King of Hell or The Golden Eagle, explore all our Gustave Doré prints, or read Doré's Inferno, explained circle by circle.