Arachne — Gustave Doré (Dante's Purgatorio)

The weaver who defied a goddess

In a shaft of pale light, Dante crouches beside his guide Virgil, crowned with laurel, and stares at a terrifying sight: Arachne, half woman, half spider, her head twisted toward the ground. All around them lie the fallen figures of the proud. In Greek myth, told by Ovid, Arachne was a mortal weaver so gifted and so arrogant that she challenged the goddess Athena to a contest, and was turned into a spider as punishment. Dante places her in the Twelfth Canto of Purgatorio, among the examples of punished pride carved into the stone of the mountain.

Doré at his most haunting

Gustave Doré published his illustrations for Purgatorio and Paradiso in 1868, following his famous Inferno of 1861. Translated into wood engraving, his drawings achieve extraordinary effects of light: here, the beam falling from above isolates the two poets and throws Arachne's long, hairy legs into sharp relief. It is one of the most striking and most reproduced images of the whole series, where myth, horror and poetry meet.

Why it works so well on a wall

Its silvery greys and deep blacks make this print a natural fit for a library, a study, a reading corner or a dark-academia interior. It is also a wonderful gift for Dante readers, lovers of mythology, and anyone who weaves, knits or sews: Arachne is, after all, the patron myth of every textile artist. A thin black or dark wood frame emphasizes the richness of the engraving.

• Artist: Gustave Doré (1832–1883)
• Work: Illustration for Dante's Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto XII
• Date: 1868
• Medium: Wood engraving
• Literary source: Dante Alighieri; the myth of Arachne from Ovid's Metamorphoses

Discover more of Doré's visionary engravings in our Gustave Doré collection, or explore our Mythology prints.