Charles Perrault, Contes, Le Petit Poucet, "Ils mangèrent d'un appétit qui faisait plaisir à voir au père et à la mère" - Gravure originale sur bois debout, tirée sur chine et contrecollée sur vergé de Hollande

Original wood engraving signed on the plate by the artist and engraver. Composition by Gustave Doré and engraved by Hélène Boetzel on China paper and mounted on Dutch laid paper at the request of publisher Hetzel to illustrate his folio edition of Perrault's Contes in 1862.
A pale marginal dampstain, not touching the image.
These illustrations of the Contes are considered the most successful of this text: Gustave Doré offers an unprecedented dramatic vision. With him, everything contributes to the dramatization of the tale, from the theatrical staging of the tableau to the smallest details that generate a terrifying realism through the technique known as "tinted wood." He uses India ink or gouache, previously diluted as required by the "wash" technique. For Perrault's tales, the eleven finest engravers of the period were enlisted to engrave with burin the forty wooden plates: Pannemaker, Pisan, Pierdon, Maurand, Boetzel, Brevière, Hébert, Deschamps, Dumont, Delduc and Fagnon. Gustave Doré's work in illustrating the Contes is paramount; he does not reduce engraving to its ornamental function but transforms it into a true narrative object. These illustrations are Doré's most famous works and immediately received enthusiastic reviews, notably that of Sainte-Beuve in Les Nouveaux lundis (23 December 1861): "Un Perrault comme il n'y en eut jamais jusqu'ici et comme il ne s'en verra plus. (...) Je ne puis que dire que ces dessins me semblent fort beaux, d'un tour riche et opulent, qu'ils ont un caractère grandiose qui renouvelle l'aspect de ces humbles contes et leur rend de leur premier merveilleux antérieur à Perrault même." ["A Perrault such as there has never been until now and such as will never be seen again. (...) I can only say that these drawings seem very beautiful to me, rich and opulent in style, that they have a grandiose character that renews the aspect of these humble tales and restores to them their first wonder, anterior even to Perrault."]