Gustave Doré French, 1832-1883

J. Valmy-Baysse, Gustave Doré: L'Art et la Vie, Paris, 1930, illustrated opposite p. 270 (entitled Ladies à Hyde Park)
Louis Dézé, Gustave Doré: bibliographie et catalogue complet de l'oeuvre, Paris, 1930, p. 123, mentioned

Miladys à Hyde Park depicts two young ladies of fashion, their prosperity a reflection of Doré's own success as an arriviste in London when he painted them.

By the late 1860s, Doré had a huge following in England. In 1867 he agreed to sign a contract with Messrs Fairless & Beeforth to open a gallery in London devoted solely to his work. He travelled to England on 18 May 1868 and received a triumphal welcome. The opening of the Doré Gallery actually took place at the German Gallery, its home for the first year of its existence. A year later, the gallery moved to its permanent premises at 35 New Bond Street, now occupied by Sotheby's, where it would remain open to the public for the next twenty-three years. During that time over two and a half million people paid their shilling to view Doré's works.  

Doré quickly became fascinated by the many facets of London life. One of his greatest achievements was his collaboration from 1868, soon after his arrival, with the English journalist Blanchard Jerrold on London: a Pilgrimage (published 1872). In hundreds of rough sketches taken during his peregrinations through the capital on foot or by hansom cab he recorded the details of London social life (fig. 1). The finished drawings worked up from them, which were then made into wood engravings, emphasised the class divide, and the gulf between rich and poor.

But the biggest critical acclaim was in response to the popular canvases such as the present work, often monumental in size, exhibited at the Doré gallery. Some idea of the welcome given the artist by the London public may be had from the newspaper reviews. The Daily Telegraph found him 'more fecund, more inspired, and above all, a finer colourist, than all the palettes united who canvas the walls of galleries and showrooms and fight for the Prize of Rome', while Lloyds News declared 'We have always insisted-judging with an intimate knowledge-that Doré was an art-presence infinitely higher than the world had yet estimated. Our justification is now in this country' (in Milicent Rose, Gustave Doré, London, 1946, p. 38).

A watercolour, pen and sepia study for the present work, measuring 41 by 30.5 cm., was sold in these rooms on 2 June 1971, lot 90.

We are grateful to Samuel F. Clapp for his assistance in the cataloguing of this work.