The Doré Bible Gallery

compiled by Felix Just, S.J., Ph.D.

The Artist:

Gustave Doré was an Alsacian artist who specialized in book illustrations. Born in Strasbourg, France, on January 6, 1832, he began his artistic career in Paris when he was only 15 years old. His drawings and illustrations were groundbreaking and very popular, although he never won the acclaim of the artistic elite in France. In his later years, he spent much time in London, where he also opened a very popular gallery. He died on January 23, 1883, at the age of 51.

Doré is probably most famous for his depictions of numerous scenes from the Bible, but he also produced illustrations for many other books, including Milton, Dante, La Fontaine, Don Quixote, Baron Munchhausen, etc. [See below for links to websites with a more detailed biography and some reproductions of his non-biblical illustrations and paintings.]

The Bible Illustrations:

Doré and the artisans in his studios produced hundreds of different woodcuts illustrating scenes from a wide variety of biblical stories from both the Old Testament (including the Apocrypha) and the New Testament.

His biblical illustrations were first published in 1865 in France and reprinted in the late 1860's in various German, English, and other editions. These large-folio multi-volume Bibles (with about 240 illustrations each) were very heavy and expensive, but smaller editions were soon also published. Most of the illustrations are identical in the various editions, but some illustrations are not found in certain language editions, and in other cases as slightly different illustration is found for the same biblical passage.

Doré's illustrations were extremely popular in both Europe and America in the last decades of the nineteenth century. For example, over 1.5 million people visited the Doré Exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1896. Several publishers also printed smaller collections of his biblical illustrations without the complete text of the Bible in so-called "Doré Bible Gallery" editions.

His artistic style greatly influenced some of the early biblical films, especially those of D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. In fact, some of the scenes from DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923 & 1956) look remarkably similar to the corresponding biblical illustration by Doré.

This website contains illustrations related both to the Old Testament (esp. the prophetic books) and to the New Testament (esp. the Gospels). Click on the following links for the desired category:

A Select Bibliography:

Doré's biblical illustrations have been printed and reprinted in many different editions by various publishers over the past 140 years:

Complete Bibles:

Le Sainte Bible: Traduction nouvelle selon la Vulgate par Mm. J.-J. Bourasse et P. Janvier. Tours: Alfred Mame et Fils, 1866. - two large folio volumes (43 cm.), 909+948 pages, with 228 full-page plates by Doré; the biblical text is printed in two columns separated by decorations by H. Giacomelli.
The Holy Bible, with Illustrations by Gustave Doré. London & New York: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1866-70. - a large folio edition (38 cm.) with a total of 238 illustrations; published in London in sixty-four parts (four schillings each), and in New York in thirty parts (two dollars each, with about 8 plates and about 70 pages of biblical text in each part).
Die Heilige Schrift: Alten und Neuen Testaments, verdeutscht von D. Martin Luther: mit zweihundert und dreissig Bildern von Gustav Doré. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Eduard Hallberger (later Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt), [1876-1877]. - large folio (44 cm.) with 230 illustrations; most plates are identical to those in the Cassell edition, but some show slight variations in design, 11 plates from Cassell were omitted, and 3 plates were newly added.
Die Heilige Schrift des Israeliten, in deutscher Uebertragung von Ludwig Philippson; mit einhundert vier und fünfzig Bildern von Gustave Doré. 2 vols. Stuttgart: Eduard Hallberger, [ca. 1874]. - large folio (42 cm.) with 154 plates; Hebrew Bible only.

Bible Galleries:

The Bible Gallery, illustrated by Gustave Doré, with descriptions by Talbot Chambers. London & New York: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1880. - one large volume (35 cm.), unpaged, with 100 plates (56 OT, 44 NT).
The Doré Bible Gallery, containing one hundred superb illustrations and a page of explanatory letter-press facing each. Philadelphia: Henry Altemus, n.d. [ca. 1883]. - contains almost all the same selections as the above Cassell edition; similar editions were also published by other companies ca. 1890, including John W. Lovell Co. (New York), The National Publishing Co. (Philadelphia), Belford-Clarke & Co. (Chicago & New York, 1891), etc. - this last edition is available online at Project Gutenberg
The Bible in Pictures. New York: William H. Wise, 1934 and 1939. - large hardcover edition (8"x11") with 140 selected illustrations.
The Bible Illustrated. New York: Pilsbury Publishers, 1951. - large paperback (9"x12") with 104 full-page illustrations.
The Doré Bible Illustrations. New York: Dover Publications, 1974. - a collection of 241 plates; the largest inexpensive edition still available new and used in most bookstores; consider purchasing a copy for yourself!
Pictures of the Bible. 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harbour Press, 1988. - vol. 1: The Old Testament and the Books of Maccabees; vol. 2: The New Testament and the Apocrypha (with 102 illustrations).
Doré Bible Gallery: Nineteenth Century Biblical Engravings in Postcards. New York: Robern Publishing, 1999. - 30 reproductions from the Old and New Testaments.

Doré Galleries, with both biblical and non-biblical illustrations:

The Doré Gallery: Containing two hundred and fifty beautiful engravings selected from the Doré Bible, Milton, and Dantes Inferno [and others]; with a memoir of Doré, critical essay, and descriptive letterpress by Edmund Ollier. London, New York: Cassell, Petter and Galpin, [1870]. - 180 plates, 39 cm.
A Doré Gallery. London: Spring Books; New York: Arco, 1974. - adapted from the 2-volume edition of 1870, reprints the text by E. Ollier (1827-1886).

Some Related Links:

Gustave Doré - article from Britannica.
Gustave Doré - images and brief biography; from the CGFA website, by Carol Gerten-Jackson.
Gustave Doré Art Collections - online reproductions of many of Doré works; from the "Art Passions" website.

Copyright / Acknowledgments:

Since these illustrations are well over 100 years old, they are in the "public domain" and are thus free of copyright; but since I took the trouble to scan them and make them available on the web, I would appreciate receiving appropriate credit and acknowledgements. Thus, I encourage anyone to copy, print, download, distribute, or otherwise use these illustrations for any non-commercial purpose, especially for educational and/or religious uses; but please credit me by name (Felix Just, S.J.), include the URL of this page (http://catholic-resources.org/Art/Dore.htm), and/or link to it from your webpages. Thanks!

A Note to Owners of The Doré Bible Gallery:

One of the most frequent questions people ask me by e-mail is, "Can you tell me how much my book is worth?" Since I am a professor of New Testament Studies, not an antique book dealer, I really cannot help you determine the value of your book. A Doré Bible Gallery could be worth only $10 or over $100, depending on the exact edition and the quality of preservation, while a complete Doré Bible could be worth several hundred dollars. I suggest you search for your book at www.ebay.com, since some copies are auctioned there almost every week.

Special thanks to my student assistants, Patrick Carroll and Tyler Herried, for their help with these webpages.

Electronic New Testament Educational Resoureces