El judío errante

To represent the legend of the Wandering Jew, a mythical figure spread throughout Europe in the 16th century in which a Jew wanders the world without hope of resting in peace to atone for his participation in the Passion of Jesus Christ, Gustave Doré consulted the memories of the residents of Brabant, Brussels, who told how they saw with their own eyes that bearded man when he passed through the city in 1774. They claimed that they heard him tell the story of his sad story. Apart from these testimonies, the great French illustrator would also be inspired for his book, published in 1857, by the masters Cranach and Alberto Dürer. The engravings of the original book, which had texts (poem, prologue and epilogue) by Pierre Dupont, were made on wood, instead of metal plates, to achieve a higher quality in the tones and nuances of the illustrations.