Born in Strasbourg in 1832, Gustave Doré was a prodigious talent as a child, engraving his own lithographic stones by the time he was twelve. In the first three years he worked in a publishing house, he created an astonishing 700 drawings and five albums, all without taking formal art lessons. Over a remarkably scored career, Doré created 238 Bible engravings, 10,000 engravings, 1,000 lithographs, 400 oil paintings, and 30 sculptures. Although he was enormously successful as an illustrator, Doré yearned to be seen first and foremost as a painter, and he abandoned illustration in his twilight years. The abandonment was surprising given he had announced more than a 1,000 illustrations for four Shakespeare plays.
