Alpenglow, Late Afternoon, Snow-Capped Mountains with Herdswoman and Cattle

Though best remembered as an illustrator, Gustave Doré was an astonishingly talented multidisciplinary artist, working across the media of drawing, watercolor and oil painting, woodcut printmaking, and sculpture. Doré’s fortune was established through illustrating editions of the Bible, Dante, Milton, Shakespeare, and others; his illustrations of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were so iconic they created the visual vocabulary of the story still used today. However, the artist always maintained, ‘I illustrate today to pay for my paint and my brushes, my heart has always been with painting.’ Ruggedly Romantic mountain landscapes held an enduring fascination for the artist, particularly following his visit to the Scottish Highlands in the 1870s. The drama of these landscapes, particularly the quickly changing light and weather and their ability to dwarf any human figure set before them, captivated the artist and he returned to the subject repeatedly, both in the context of Scotland but also his native French Alps.

We are grateful to Dan Malan for confirming the authenticity of this work.