Collection: La Fontaine’s Fables by Gustave Doré

Doré engraved the Fables in 1867, two centuries after La Fontaine wrote them, and his versions have shaped how the stories look ever since. The crow with the cheese, the fox at the foot of the tree, the oak and the reed in a rising storm — you have seen these images even if you have never opened the book.

What distinguishes them from illustration is the landscape. Doré gave each fable a real setting, with weather and depth and distance, so the animals are actors in a scene rather than figures on a page.

In black and white, they suit a study, a corridor or a child's room equally well, and they make an obvious gift for a French household.

See our Gustave Doré engravings and our engraving prints.