Gustave Doré’s Victorian London: A Pilgrimage – Design You Trust

Gustave Doré’s Victorian London: A Pilgrimage

Over London – by Rail. This is probably the most famous and most often seen plate from London.

The French artist Gustave Doré also imagines the city’s ruinous destiny in his visual report on the city, London: A Pilgrimage, published in 1869. The nightmare of London’s future continued to captivate artists in the 20th century.

In 1869, Dore teamed up with journalist Blanchard Jerrold to produce a comprehensive portrait of London. For the next four years, Jerrold and Dore explored the dark underbelly of the largest, most fashionable, and most prosperous city in the world, visiting night refuges, staying in cheap lodging houses and making rounds of the opium den. The duo were often accompanied by plain-clothes policemen. They travelled up and down the river and attended fashionable events at Lambeth Palace, the boat race and the Derby.

In 1872, the completed book, London: A Pilgrimage, with 180 engravings, was published. The book became very popular and a great commercial success, even though Gustave Doré got much of it wrong.

h/t: amusingplanet

Dudley Street, Seven Dials.

Covent Garden Market, Early Morning.

“Covent Garden Market is the most famous place of barter in England – it has been said, by people who forget the historical Halle of Paris, in the world,” wrote Blanchard Jerrold.

Inside the Docks

”We have travelled through the commerce of a world in little. The London Docks alone receive something like two thousand ships a year.”

Bluegate Fields in Shadwell

Scripture Reader in a Night Refuge

Billingsgate, Early Morning

”The opening of Billingsgate Market is one of those picturesque tumults which delight the artist’s eye.”

The Workmen’s Train. Steam trains at Gower Street station on the Metropolitan underground line, which had opened in 1863.

Pickle-Herring Street

”At the cost of sundry blows and much buffeting from the hastening crowds, we make notes of Pickle-Herring Street: now pushed to the road, and now driven against the wall.”

Bishopsgate Street

Warehousing in the City

”The warehouse-men pause aloft on their landing-stages, book in hand, to contemplate us … The man bending beneath an immense sack turns up his eyes from under his burden, and appears pleased that he has disturbed us.”

Wentworth Street, Whitechapel

”From the Refuge by Smithfield we rattled through dark lanes, across horrid, flashing highways, to the Whitechapel Police Station, to pick up the superintendent of savage London.”


The Organ in the Court

The Devil’s Acre — Westminster

“By the noble Abbey is the ignoble Devil’s Acre, hideous where it now lies in the sunlight!”

If you want more awesome content, subscribe to 'Design You Trust Facebook page. You won't be disappointed.

More Inspiring Stories

Ugly Renaissance Babies
The Surreal And Disturbing Artwork Of Ffo
Swedish Artist Creates Beautiful Monochromatic Hyperrealistic Drawings
Artist Merges Reality With Imagination To Create These Surreal Pictures
London-Based Artist Thomas Duke Recreates Film Scenes Set In London And Beyond
16 Bizarre Inventions From The Victorian Era
"Weaving The Incantation": The Worlds Of Marc Simonetti
25 Rare And Cool Polaroid Prints Of Teen Girls In The 1970s
Starblazer: Forgotten Fantasy Fiction In Pictures
Turkish Artist Hossein Diba Creates These Creepy Realistic Recreations Of “The Simpsons” Characters That Will Give You Nightmares
This Artist Draws Using Only Letters and Numbers on Old Typewriters
Superb Surreal Animal Artworks By Andreas Häggkvist
80 Wonderful Black And White Photographs Of The Famous (And Not So Famous) People Who Have Left Their Mark On History
This Mailing Service Lets You Send A Message On A Potato
Portraits of Couples, Gangs, Children, Friends, and Carnival People at California County Fairs in the Late 1970s
"Phantasmagoric Ecstasy": The Superb Collage Artworks of Michelle Concetta
Here’s How Some of Rock and Roll Legends Would Look Like Today If They Weren’t Dead
Vintage Photos Of 12 Crazy Wooden Homes On Wheels From The Early 20th Century
The Visual Explanation of The Ladies’ Dress Shoes in the Nineteenth Century
Funny Illustrations About Two Kinds of People
An Illustrated Guide To Our Deepest Desires
British Singles Wear Paper Bags to Promote New Dating App
Artist Draws a Series of Innocent Illustrations Of Cute Animals In Japanese Scenarios
The Secret Lives Of Superheroes - Batman vs Superman