File:Dante (BM 1921,0415.1).jpg

Height: 534 millimetres

Width: 337 millimetres

This lithograph was exhibited in the Wordsworth Trust 2007 exhibition 'Dante Rediscovered', cat.78,p.208, where it described the print as produced by Seymour Kirkup (1788-1880). The lithograph was in fact produced by Vincent Robert Alfred Brooks after a drawing by Seymour Kirkup after a fresco formerly attributed to Giotto.The lithograph was published by the Arundel Society in 1841. In the exhibition catalogue for 'Dante Rediscovered', Stephen Hebron states that upon discovering the fresco in the Maddalena Chapel of Bargello or Palazzo del Podesta in Florence on the 21 July 1840, Seymour Kirkup wrote to Gabriele Rossetti: 'We have made a discovery of an original portrait of Dante by Giotto! Although I was a magna pars in this undertaking, the Jacks in the Office have not allowed me yet to make a copy...The precise date of the painting is not known. The poet looks about 28 - very handsome - un Apollo colle fatezze di Dante. The expression and character are worthy of the subject and much beyond what I expected from Giotto: Raphael might own it with honor. Add to which, it is not the mask of the corspe of 56: a fine noble image of the hero of Campaldino'(see p.208.) According to Hebron, Kirkup bribed a guard to allow him to remain in the chapel after it was closed, and secretly made a tracing of the portrait, a copy of which was later sent to Gabriele Rossetti, another copy was sent to the noted Dante scholar Lord Vernon. It is Lord Vernon's copy which was then made into this print and published by the Arundel Society in 1841. Therefore it is important to note that cat.78 in 'Dante Rediscovered' is in fact the lithograph produced by Vincent Robert Alfred Brooks and not the drawing by Kirkup as attributed in the exhibition catalogue.