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Overview
Alphonse Legros (1837–1911) was an Anglo-French etcher, lithographer, painter and medallist. An accomplished creator of macabre allegories and realist scenes of the French countryside, he made a massive impact on the British Etching Revival.
Born in Dijon, a move to Paris by his family in 1851 saw the fourteen-year-old Legros working as a scene-painter of opera sets. During this time Legros also received further training at the École Impériale de Dessin, Paris, under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1802–1897), whose method of teaching required students to copy Louvre works through mental recollection alone – emphasising the importance of a strong visual memory. Although Legros would spend much of his life living in Britain, his subject matter stayed distinctly French. His landscapes were enriched by memories of time spent during his childhood.
Legros moved to London in 1863, taught as Master of etching at the South Kensington School of Art in 1875 and was made Slade Professor at University College London in 1876. Upon his retirement in 1893, Legros appeared jaded about his time spent teaching, allegedly saying ‘vingt ans perdus’ – ‘twenty years lost’. Despite this disillusionment, during this time he shaped the future of the British Etching Revival through his notable students, such as William Strang and Charles Holroyd. Students and critics both noted his insistence on the quality of line which laid the foundation for the ‘Slade tradition’ of fine draughtsmanship.
Legros’ works exhibit less economy of line than the younger generation of etching revivalists; as a result, his scenes of allegory and peasant life in the French landscape are characterised by bold outlines and heavy crosshatching. He was a terrific technician, evident in his use of etching and drypoint alike.
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This relatively early drypoint print depicts an elderly priest ministering from a lectern. The title translates as 'Reading of the Office of the Day', i.e. the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours, which involves hymns, prayers and, as here, readings. The cleric reads from a large Bible and wears a humeral veil with a large metal clasp and ring. Legros has used a sketchy drypoint line that conveys the texture of the hard wooden lectern, the heavy humeral veil and the soft curves of the priest’s hair and face. The fine drypoint line almost seems to suggest that the priest is one with the lectern, and his complete concentration in reading the scripture reflects his piety.
Although apparently not a conventionally religious man, Legros made his reputation both as a painter and as an etcher with his depictions of people praying or undertaking other religious observances. He was considered by Maurice Dreyfous to be "the painter of a man or woman transformed by the emotion imparted by faith" (Dreyfous, quoted in Collet, p. 120). He had become noted for his religious scenes, and had painted a scene similar to Les chantres Espagnols - Le Lutre (The Spanish cantors or The lectern) in The Lectern (1863-1865).
Sources:
Isabelle Collet, ‘Ex-Voto’, in ‘Alphonse Legros: Migrant and Cultural Ambassador’ by Anna Gruetzner Robins in Impressionists in London: French Artist in Exile 1870-1904 (Tate Publishing: London, 2017), edited by Caroline Corbeau-Parsons
Maurice Harold Grant, ‘A Dictionary of British Etchers’, (London: Rockliff, 1953), pp. 127–128
Timothy Wilcox, ‘Legros, Alphonse (1837–1911)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004): https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/34480
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art July 2018