The work is a highly expressive depiction of Ugolino della Gherardesca from Canto XXXIII of Dante's Inferno. In the story, the Pisan count Ugolino is sentenced to die of starvation in a tower prison with his children and grandchildren. Carpeaux shows Ugolino at the moment where he considers cannibalism.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons, 1866