Artist · 3 prints
Édouard Riou Prints
About Édouard Riou
Édouard Riou (1833–1900) was a French painter and illustrator, born in Saint-Servan in Brittany and died in Paris. He spent part of his childhood in Le Havre, where he studied at the city's drawing school, and later trained with the landscape painter Charles-François Daubigny. He first showed at the Paris Salon in 1859.
Édouard Riou is best known for drawing the first pictures of Jules Verne's adventures. For the publisher Hetzel he illustrated Five Weeks in a Balloon, The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, Journey to the Center of the Earth (1867) and In Search of the Castaways, and he shared Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas with Alphonse de Neuville. His dramatic scenes were made as drawings for wood engravings, the technique that printed most book pictures of the day. He also illustrated Louis Figuier's La Terre avant le déluge (1863), a popular science book that pictured prehistoric animals such as an Iguanodon fighting a Megalosaurus, and painted watercolours of the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.
Édouard Riou prints: reproductions of his wood-engraved illustrations for Jules Verne's novels Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The collection includes Je m'imaginais voyager à travers un diamant (1867), Ces animaux s'attaquent avec fureur (1867), showing two sea monsters fighting, and the title vignette for Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1871).
This selection focuses on Verne's underground and underwater worlds: glittering caverns, prehistoric sea creatures in combat, and the opening image of the submarine novel. The engravings are black and white, with strong contrast and dense detail.
The dramatic monochrome scenes suit studies, libraries and home offices, and they pair well with the Verne illustrations by Alphonse de Neuville and Henri de Montaut. All prints are museum-quality reproductions, available unframed or framed with acrylic glazing, with free shipping and import duties covered.
