At fourteen, he published his first album. He illustrated more than a hundred and twenty volumes — Dante, the Bible, Perrault, Cervantes — with a workshop of engravers. Yet he devoted five years to a canvas six metres by nine, seeking a painter's recognition that never came.
The story
Louis Auguste Gustave Doré was born in Strasbourg on 6 January 1832. At thirteen he made his first lithographs, at fourteen he published “Les Travaux d'Hercule”, at fifteen he joined Philipon's Journal pour rire as a caricaturist and made his Salon debut with two pen drawings.
His father died in 1849: Doré was already famous at seventeen, and would stay very close to his mother, whose name stands above his own on the tomb. In 1854 the “Œuvres de Rabelais” he illustrated with nearly a hundred engravings appeared at Joseph Bry's; collectors still hunt for them, and copies in good condition are rare.
In thirty years he illustrated more than a hundred and twenty volumes in France, Germany, England and Russia: Dante, Cervantes, Victor Hugo, La Fontaine, Perrault. A workshop of engravers worked under his direction — an almost industrial organisation in the service of a gothic imagination.
Yet he gave five years, from 1867 to 1872, to “Le Christ quittant le prétoire”, a canvas six metres by nine that he held to be his masterpiece. The critics would never see in him anything but an illustrator. The painting was restored between 1998 and 2003 at the museum of modern and contemporary art in Strasbourg, in a room kept open to the public throughout the work.
Doré died on 23 January 1883 in his house in the rue Saint-Dominique, without ever winning that recognition. He lies in Division 22, under a grave of unexpected discretion for an artist whose images were seen by millions of readers.
The grave
Nothing on this stone recalls Doré's trade: not an engraving, not a medallion, only three inscriptions. His mother's, Marie Anne Alexandrine Doré, from whom he was inseparable; his own, “décédé le 23 janvier 1883 à Paris”; his brother's, “le général Paul Doré, décédé le 17 septembre 1915 à l'âge de 69 ans”. Three deaths, three lines, and not a word about the illustrator of Dante and Don Quixote.
On site, do not miss
The three inscriptions on the slab, to be read in order: the mother, the illustrator, then the general brother — and the total absence of any image on the grave of the century's greatest maker of images.
Visitors' questions
Where is Gustave Doré's grave?
In Division 22, Chemin de la Citerne, fifth row, in the older part of the cemetery. It is a family grave: his mother Marie Anne Alexandrine and his brother General Paul Doré rest there with him, beneath an unadorned stone.
Alexandre-Théodore BrongniartWhat did Gustave Doré illustrate?
More than a hundred and twenty books, including The Divine Comedy, the Bible, Don Quixote, Perrault's Fairy Tales, and the works of Rabelais published in 1854. His engravings shaped the visual imagination of an entire nineteenth-century Europe.
Camille PissarroWhen did Gustave Doré die?
On 23 January 1883, in his townhouse on Rue Saint-Dominique in Paris, at fifty-one. He had never won the recognition as a painter he longed for, despite spending five years on “Christ Leaving the Praetorium”.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique IngresWhat does his grave look like?
A plain family grave, without sculpture, in Division 22: only three inscriptions, those of his mother Marie Anne Alexandrine, his own, and his brother General Paul Doré's.
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