GUSTAVE DORÉ (FRENCH 1832-1883)MOSES IN THE BULRUSHESOil on canvasSigned (lower left)89 x 129cm (35 x 50¾ in.)Provenance:Purchased from the artist by the Blencowe family in CheltenhamJane Roberts and Max Rutherston Gallery, LondonSale, Sotheby's, New York, 23 May 1989, lot 60 ($50,000 excl. premium)Private collection, Blaisdon Hall, GloucestershireGustave Doré was commissioned to produce a series of 241 wood-engravings for a new deluxe edition of the 1843 French translation of the Vulgate Bible, popularly known as the La Grande Bible de Tours. This two volume work by published in France and Great Britian in 1866 and included 139 plates from the Old Testament and 81 from the New Testiment. Plate 39 The Child Moses on the Nile (The book of Exodus. 1:8-22, 2:1-4) shows close similarities to the present picture. The illustrations had broad international appeal and were widely reproduced. The artist's biographer Joanna Richardson suggests that the project `Offered him an almost endless series of intensely dramatic events. reminds one of the visions of John Martin. They also reveal many elements by now familiar in Doré's work: the mountain scenes, the lurid skies.... There is, too, a period element: the angels are Victorian angels, full of sentiment; the women are, again, keepsake women, the children are Victorian children: sentimental or wise beyond their years. (Joanna Richardson, Gustave Doré, London, 1980, pp. 72-73.)