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Elliott & Fry
Gustave Doré
n.d.
Carte de visite
Paul Frecker
LL/12032
Paul Frecker provides the following comments:
"A carte-de-visite portrait of Gustave Doré, the French artist chiefly known as a prolific illustrator but who was also active as a painter, etcher and sculptor. A precocious talent, he exploded onto the Paris art scene at the age of fifteen, and by the following year he was the highest paid illustrator in France. Theophile Gaultier dubbed him "the boy genius." As well as thousands of satirical caricatures, during his career he produced closely worked engravings of scenes from Rabelais, Dante, Cervantes, the Bible, Milton and Poe. He was so prolific that one time he employed more than forty blockcutters. His work is characterized by a highly spirited love of the grotesque and represents a commercialisation of the Romantic taste for the bizarre. Drawings of London done in 1869-1871 were more sober studies of the poorer quarters of the city. For many years from 1869 Doré had his own gallery in London, on the site now occupied by Sotheby's."
Photographed by Elliott and Fry of 55, Baker Street, London.
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