Rare Two Oversized Volume Set, the Doré Gallery: 250 Beautiful Engravings, Vol. I & II Gustave Doré c.1870

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Rare Two Oversized Volume Set, The Doré Gallery: 250 Beautiful Engravings, Vol. I & II Gustave Doré c.1870 - Leather … Read more Rare Two Oversized Volume Set, The Doré Gallery: 250 Beautiful Engravings, Vol. I & II Gustave Doré c.1870 - Leather bound, gilt end pages and embellishments designs are selected from 11 of the most important works illustrated by this great French artist--viz. the "Inferno," "Purgatorio," and "Paradiso" of Dante; Milton's "Paradise Lost," the Bible, "Don Quixote," "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," Chateaubriand's "Atala," the Fables of La Fontaine, "The Legend of Croquemitaine," and "The Fairy Realm."

The two-volume book also contains Memoir of Doré, Critical Essay, and Descriptive Letterpress by Edmund Ollier. Almost all engravings are close to 8" x 10" Each plate has a protective cover sheet. Each book measures approx 12" x 15" x 2" overall.

The most popular and successful French book illustrator of the mid 19th century. Doré became very widely known for his illustrations to such books as Dante's Inferno (1861), Don Quixote (1862), and the Bible (1866), and he helped to give European currency to the illustrated book of large . He was so prolific that at one time he employed more than forty blockcutters. His work is characterized by a rather naïve but highly spirited love of the grotesque and represents a commercialization of the Romantic taste for the bizarre. Drawings of London done in 1869-71 were more sober studies of the poorer quarters of the city and captured the attention of van Gogh. In the 1870s he also took up painting (doing some large and ambitions religious works) and sculpture (the monument to the dramatist and novelist Alexandre Dumas in the Place Malesherbes in Paris, erected in 1883, is his work). See less