Portrait of Gustave Doré

Carolus-Duran's 1877 portrait of Gustave Doré — the most celebrated French book illustrator of the 19th century, famous for his images for Dante's Inferno, Don Quixote, and the Bible — captures two major figures of the Paris art world in a direct encounter. Carolus-Duran was at this point the leading portrait painter in Paris, his studio the most sought-after training ground for young painters including Sargent. Doré was a phenomenon: enormously productive, technically dazzling, and personally flamboyant. Their portrait represents a meeting of two confident artistic personalities, one a portraitist of consummate skill, the other a visual inventor of extraordinary range.

Carolus-Duran applies his bold, Velázquez-derived technique to Doré's larger-than-life personality — the face rendered with direct, confident strokes capturing its animation and self-assurance. His alla prima method produces a surface of freshness and decisive application that made his teaching so influential.