Cervantès, Don Quichotte, Pour être si grièvement blessé, dit Sancho, ce garçon-là jase beaucoup. Gravure originale sur bois debout. Tome 2, ch.21

First edition. Wood engraving signed in the plate by the artist.
Plate created specifically for the illustration of Cervantes' Don Quixote for the 1863 Hachette edition.

Gustave Doré first traveled to Spain in 1855, in the company of Théophile Gautier and publisher Paul Dalloz. In 1861, responding to a commission from the journal Le Tour du monde, he returned there with Baron Jean Charles Davillier, a knowledgeable Hispanophile, who would recount their journey in his Voyage en Espagne.
Doré went there primarily with a view to illustrating Don Quixote: "Je me rends donc dans la patrie de cet illustre hidalgo pour étudier tous les lieux qu'il a parcourus et remplis de ses exploits et faire ainsi une chose qui aura son parfum local" ["I am therefore going to the homeland of this illustrious hidalgo to study all the places he has traveled through and filled with his exploits and thus create something that will have its local flavor"]. Gustave Doré would thus conduct several working sessions with Louis Viardot, translator of Cervantes' text.
Cervantes' novel ranks among the most illustrated narratives in European literature, but Doré wanted to surpass his predecessors (Tony Johannot, Grandville, Daumier...). Upon its publication in 1863, the work would be the subject of unanimous praise, notably from Emile Zola: "On appelle ça illustrer un ouvrage : moi, je prétends que c'est le refaire. Au lieu d'un chef-d'oeuvre, l'esprit humain en compte deux" ["They call that illustrating a work: I claim 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