Charles Perrault, Contes, La Barbe bleue, "Les voisines & les amies tant elles avaient d'impatience de voir toutes les richesses de sa maison" - 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 created by Gustave Doré and engraved on China paper and mounted on laid Holland paper at the request of publisher Hetzel to illustrate his folio edition of Perrault's Contes in 1862.
Small fold to lower right corner not affecting the engraving and occasional light worming to margin.
These illustrations of the Contes are considered the most successful of this text: Gustave Doré presents an unprecedented dramatic vision. With him, everything contributes to the dramatization of the tale, from the theatrical staging of the scene 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 employed 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 object of narration. These illustrations are Doré's most famous works and immediately received enthusiastic criticism, 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 like there never was before and as will never be seen again. (...) I can only say that these drawings seem very beautiful to me, of a rich and opulent turn, that they have a grandiose character that renews the aspect of these humble tales and restores to them their original marvelous quality that existed before Perrault himself."]