Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011458Liberty
by Gustave Doré
About the Artwork
Gustave Doré is best known for his skill as a draftsman (often seen in book illustrations), as well as for his sense of the fantastic and visionary. In the present drawing, his fluid washes and flowing lines of white add to the dramatic scene of a liberating angel breaking chains. The drawing relates to Doré's Defense of Paris (Memories of 1870), which treated an event from the recent Franco-Prussian War with a figure representing Liberty. A major difference between the painting and the drawing is that Doré represented soldiers in contemporary uniforms in the painting, but in the drawing of Liberty, he conceived a broader theme in which crowns and medieval costumes evoke an earlier time.
Inscriptions
lower right, in graphite: 186x48x63; stamped, lower right, in red ink: ATELIER / GDORE [circled]
Provenance
by 1875-1883: Estate of Gustave Doré [1832-1883, L. 681a] 1885: (Hotel Drouot, Doré studio sale, Paris, April 13, 1885, no. 96) 1989: (Hotel Drouot, Paris, June 22, 1989, no. 15) 1989-1990: (Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris, sold to Muriel Butkin, Shaker Heights, OH) 1990-2008: Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 2008: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Gustave Doré (French, 1832–1883)
- Date
- c. 1865–75
- Medium
- Brush and brown wash and gray and white gouache with graphite
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 46.5 x 32.9 cm (18 5/16 x 12 15/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Accession no.
- 2008.383
More by Gustave Doré in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011458
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