PROVENANCE: Central Picture Galleries, New York, 1975; BJU, 1975.

Gustave Doré is justly known as the greatest illustrator ever. He began his professional career at the age of 15 as an illustrator for the humorous magazine Journal pour Rire. He produced at least 8,000 wood engravings, 1,000 lithographs, 700 zinc engravings, 100 steel engravings, 50 etchings, 400 oil paintings, 500 watercolors, 800 mixed-media sketches, and 30 major works of sculpture in the course of his life.

The original Ascension hung with other religious works in the German Gallery of London (later the Doré Gallery, now occupied by Sotheby’s) that Christians (including the great preacher Charles Spurgeon) frequently visited.

Sketches that Doré made while taking hot-air balloon rides with his photographer friend, Felix Nadar, probably inspired the present bird’s-eye view. The burst of glory and the host of winged angels foreshadow Christ’s return when “we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:17).