Charles Perrault, Contes, La Belle au bois dormant, "Cette bonne femme n'avait point entendu parler des défenses que le roi avait faites de filer au fuseau" - Gravure originale sur bois debout, tirée sur chine et contrecollée sur vergé de Hollande

Original wood engraving signed in the plate by the artist and engraver. Composition created by Gustave Doré and engraved by François Pannemaker 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 very light marginal dampstain, not affecting the design, as well as some soiling in the left margin.
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 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 best engravers of the time were enlisted to engrave the forty wood plates with the burin: Pannemaker, Pisan, Pierdon, Maurand, Boetzel, Brevière, Hébert, Deschamps, Dumont, Delduc and Fagnon. Gustave Doré's work in illustrating the Contes is essential; he does not reduce engraving to its ornamental function but transforms it into a true object of narration. These illustrations are Doré's most famous works and immediately received enthusiastic reviews, notably that of Sainte-Beuve in Les Nouveaux lundis (December 23, 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 the likes of which has never existed until now and the likes of which will never be seen again. (...) I can only say that these drawings seem very beautiful to me, of a rich and opulent style, that they have a grandiose character that renews the aspect of these humble tales and restores to them their first marvelous quality that preceded Perrault himself."]