L’Ange bénit les âimes confiées à sa garde, et les débarque dans le purgatoire

In Flaxman’s The Benediction we get a closer view of the “heavenly steersman” whose wings have served as sails. The transported souls are sharply individualized as they prepare to disembark under the angel’s benediction. In the words of Cary’s translation, “Then soon as with the sign of holy cross / He bless’d them, they at once leap’d out on land” (2.48-49). In this drawing Flaxman augments Dante’s association of the angel with the sun with rays that radiate out away from his hovering figure into the ambient air. Réveil gives a deeper edge to the stern of the bark than had Piroli, and a more regularized elegance to the antique, abstract wave pattern under the flare of the sternpiece.