[Printed handbill.] Description (By Mr. Tom Taylor, M.A.) of the "Triumph of Christianity" painted by M. Gustave Doré

Author: 
Tom Taylor, M.A.; Gustave Doré
Publication details: 
Bradbury, Evans, and Co., Printers, Whitefriars. [Circa 1867.]
£125.00
SKU: 12307

4pp., 12mo. Bifolium. Aged and ruckled. Doré's huge painting 'The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism' was first exhibited in the Egyptian Hall in Piccadilly in 1867. Taylor begins his analysis of the work by contending that Doré 'has embodied pictorially the same idea of the overthrow of Heathenism by Christianity which Milton described poetically in his "Ode to the Nativity."' He concludes by stating: 'Thus the whole picture is a painted Paean, or triumphal hymn of Christianity over the impure faiths which it destroyed, not as the creed of Mahomet drove out Arab Sabaeanism by the torch of the invader and the sword of the flesh, but by the light of the Word and the weapon of the Spirit.' Excessively scarce: no copy in the British Library, or on COPAC.