The Work
Doré's Elisha Raises the Shunammite's Son (from La Sainte Bible, 1866) depicts the intimate miracle of 2 Kings 4 with sensitivity unusual in Doré's typically dramatic style: the prophet lying upon the dead child in the upper room, the resurrection gesture rendered with close physical care, while the mother waits outside. The scene prefigures Christ's resurrection miracles in the typological tradition.
Biblical Source
2 Kings 4:34-35 - "Then he got on the bed and lay on top of the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched out on him, the boy's body grew warm... The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes" - describes Elisha's intimate restoration technique, paralleled by Elijah's identical action (1 Kings 17:21) and explicitly parallel to Jesus's raising of Jairus's daughter.
Artist and Iconography
Doré renders the scene with unusual tenderness: the prophet's figure bent over the child, the grief of the mother visible in the doorway. The plate was used in Victorian typological preaching connecting the Elisha miracle to Christ's resurrection miracles and ultimately to the general resurrection, the boy's sneeze and opened eyes a small prefiguration of the final opening of all eyes.