LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN’S GATE

Original 9 3/4 inch x 7 3/4 inch Engraving titled LAZARUS AT THE RICH MAN’S GATE.

”At the top of a flight of steps, in a magnificent saloon divided by pillars of Oriental architecture, sits Dives, splendidly arrayed, and surrounded by parasites and flaunting women, who raise their chalices of wine in honour of the great man. A female servant, descending the steps with a steaming vessel on her head, casts a cold, unsympathetic glance on the wretched mendicant lying at the bottom, with upturned face of beseeching misery. A black slave, with an amphora, or wine-jar, on his shoulder, sternly motions Lazarus to depart; while another attendnat threatens him with a rod and his clenched fist.”

Illustration by Gustave Doré (1832 – 1883). The most popular and successful French book illustrator of the middle of the 19th century. Doré became widely known for his illustrations to such books as Danté’s Inferno (1861), Don Quixote (1862), and the Bible (1866), and he helped to give European currency to the illustrated book of large format. He was so prolific that at one time he employed more than forty wood engravers. His work is characterized by an eclectic mix of Michelangelesque nudes, northern traditions of sublime landscape, and a highly spirited love of the grotesque and bizarre.

Engraved by Antoine Valérie Bertrand. Antoine Valérie Bertrand was a pupil of Henry Brown and later Henry Harrison. He exhibited regularly in Paris from 1864 to 1879. In the salon of 1874 he showed the wood engravings: Bulgarian Peasants and Jats Peasants of Northern Malwa. He worked for several periodicals including Le Magasin pittoresque and Le Tour du Monde, and engraved the figures.

From Doré’s illustrated edition of the Bible 1866.

This edition from Cassell’s ‘Doré Gallery’ published in 1885.

Page size 12 1/4 inch x 9 1/8 inch

The engraving is in very good condition. Reverse side blank.