Plate created specifically for the illustration of Cervantes' Don Quixote for the Hachette edition of 1863.
Gustave Doré first travelled to Spain in 1855, accompanied by Théophile Gautier and the publisher Paul Dalloz. In 1861, fulfilling a commission from the journal Le Tour du monde, he returned there with Baron Jean Charles Davillier, an experienced hispanophile, who would recount their journey in his Voyage en Espagne.
Doré went there primarily with a view to illustrating Don Quixote: "I am therefore going to the homeland of this illustrious hidalgo to study all the places he travelled through and filled with his exploits and thus create something which will have its local flavour". Gustave Doré would thus hold several working sessions with Louis Viardot, translator of Cervantes' text.
Cervantes' novel is among the most illustrated stories in European literature but Doré wanted to surpass his predecessors (Tony Johannot, Grandville, Daumier...). When it appeared in 1863, the work was the subject of unanimous praise, notably from Emile Zola: "They call that illustrating a work: I maintain that it's remaking it. Instead of one masterpiece, the human spirit now counts two".
See our other engravings by Gustave Doré
Gustave Doré, L'Imaginaire au pouvoir (Musée d'Orsay, 2014)
Virtual exhibition on Gustave Doré on the Gallica website