Gustave Doré
Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré (; French: [ɡys'ta:v dɔʁ'e:]; 6 January 1832 – 23 January 1883) was a French artist, printmaker, illustrator and sculptor. Doré worked primarily with wood engraving.
Biography
Doré was born in Strasbourg on 6 January 1832. By age five, he was a prodigy troublemaker, playing pranks that were mature beyond his years. Seven years later, he began carving in cement. At the age of fifteen Doré began his career working as a caricaturist for the French paper Le Journal pour rire, and subsequently went on to win commissions to depict scenes from books by Rabelais, Balzac, Milton and Dante.
In 1853, Doré was asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron. This commission was followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated English Bible. In 1856 he produced twelve folio-size illustrations of The Legend of The Wandering Jew, which propagated long standing anti-semitic views of the time, for a short poem which Pierre-Jean de Ranger had derived from a novel of Eugène Sue of 1845.
