Shortly after the publication of Blake's Illustratrations of the Book of Job in March, 1825, John Linnell, who had commissioned Job, suggested that Blake undertake a similar set of engraved illustrations for Dante's monumental Divine Comedy. Blake accepted the proposal, and his illustrations of Dante would be the last project of his life. A month after accepting this commission, Blake wrote to Linnell, "I am too much attach'd to Dante to think much of anything else."

It is revealing that Blake's last two artistic endeavors should deal with the subject of punishment and suffering, for Blake himself suffered greatly during this work. Although often bedridden during the last two years of his life, Blake found an inner strength to carry on his work. Many of his letters to Linnell and others during this period refer to his illness. "I am still far from recovered, & dare not get out in the cold air. Yet I lose nothing by it. Dante goes on the better, which is all I care about."

His lingering illness, however, prohibited the completion of this final great work, and at his death on August 12, 1827, Blake left 102 designs for the Divine Comedy in various stages of completion.

The exhibit includes reproductions of two of Blake's more finished designs for Canto XIV of the Inferno, revealing the tortures of the Blasphemers. The watercolor on the left shows several such souls engulfed in flames, while that on the right shows the suffering of one chief blasphemer, Capaneus.