[2] The Barque of Dante was an artistically ambitious work, and although the composition is conventional, the painting in some important respects broke unmistakably free of the French Neo-Classical tradition.

Virgil's detachment from the tumult surrounding him, and his concern for Dante's well-being, is an obvious counterpoint to the latter's fear, anxiety, and physical state of imbalance.

Their lining of the boat takes an up-and-down wave-like form, echoing the choppy water and making the foot of the painting a region of perilous instability.

[3] Both Charles Le Brun's, La Colère of 1668, and John Flaxman's line engraving The Fiery Sepulchres, appearing as plate 11 in The Divine Poem of Dante Alighieri, 1807, are likely sources for this head.

The author Charles Blanc noted the white linen on Virgil's mantle, describing it as a 'great wake up in the middle of the dark, a flash in the tempest'.

[7] Lee Johnson discussing these drops comments that "the analytical principle [Delacroix] applies of dividing into pure coloured components an object that to the average eye would appear monochrome or colourless, is of far-reaching significance for the future.

"[8] In a letter to his sister, Madame Henriette de Verninac, written in 1821, Delacroix speaks of his desire to paint for the Salon the following year, and to 'gain a little recognition'.

[12] One particularly favourable piece of criticism from up-and-coming lawyer Adolphe Thiers received wide circulation in the liberal periodical Le Constitutionnel.