Condition Excellent.

Salvador Dalí's woodblock engraving for Inferno Canto 20 is part of his larger project of illustrating The Divine Comedy, commissioned in 1950 to celebrate Dante Alighieri's 700th birthday. Dalí produced 100 watercolours representing Dante’s epic journey, and these were later translated into woodblock engravings by skilled artisans under his supervision, resulting in one of Dalí’s most notable literary-artistic collaborations.

Canto 20: The Diviners and Sorcerers

Canto 20 of the Inferno is located in the Fourth Bolgia of the Eighth Circle of Hell, where Dante encounters those who attempted to see the future or change fate—diviners, sorcerers, astrologers, and magicians. In Dante's Hell, these sinners are punished by having their heads twisted around backward, forcing them to eternally walk with their faces looking behind them, a symbolic reflection of their attempts to peer into the future.

In his woodblock engraving for this canto, Dalí visually conveys the grotesque and haunting nature of this punishment. Key elements of the scene include:

Dalí illustrates figures whose heads are grotesquely twisted around, staring backward. The distorted forms mirror the eternal torment of these sinners.
The background in Dalí's piece, as in many of his works, has a surreal, ethereal quality. This adds to the otherworldly atmosphere of Dante’s Hell and complements the supernatural theme of divination.
 Dalí often used elongated figures, which appear distorted and stretched in this engraving, capturing the unnatural, torturous punishment inflicted on the sorcerers.
 The artist's symbolic use of space and form enhances the eerie, unsettling nature of this canto. His style reflects both the suffering of the sinners and the moral message about the consequences of meddling with the divine order.
Dalí’s illustrations were painstakingly translated into woodblock engravings by a team of master craftsmen who carved over 3,000 individual blocks to capture the colours and details of his original watercolours.
The woodblock technique gives the engraving a textured, layered quality that brings out the haunting details and fine lines of the figures and landscape.