May 3, 2020
Paolo and Francesca (1832). Louis Rubio (Italian, 1808-1882). Oil on canvas.
Rubio represents the moment when Francesca, wife of the crippled Lord of Rimini, who has been reading the romantic tales from the Morte d’Artur, drops the book as she reads how Sir Lancelot kisses Arthur’s wife Guinevere in an adulterous embrace. At that moment, her young companion and brother-in-law, Paolo Malatesta, leans to kiss her. Her husband, Giovanni Malatesta, enters the room at that moment and in instant rage, plunges his sword through both of them. The drama of the moment is accentuated by the contrast of the tenderly embracing couple seated unaware of their imminent fate with the enraged husband entering the room behind them, about to draw his sword.