9. Alphonse Legros
(1837-1911)
Le Triomphe de la Mort : Le Départ

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Legros, Le Triomphe de la Mort

Le Triomphe de la Mort : Le Départ

Etching, 1890s, 337 x 502 mm., Bliss 454 state unknown. A fine, strong impression on thick laid paper with good margins, signed in pencil. The state is unknown but presumably early as the lower plate margin is uncleaned and has no letters apart from the artist’s monogram, the background is unfinished and there is as yet no fine shading. Legros was a complex man, a prolific painter and draughtsman as well as print maker. Though French born and trained, he moved to England (at the urging of Whistler) to become professor at the Slade School and never went back. His earlier prints have been characterized as “weird” and that weirdness, of both subject and treatment, continued to crop up in his work, balanced by delicate and fanciful landscapes and portraits that seem barely breathed onto the plate. This powerful plate is one of many concerned with death, and while it is typical of his work, it is typical of only a part of it. The drawing is far more elegant than the deliberate ugliness of some of the early etchings. At the same time, there is no trace here of the delicacy and grace of some of the others. It is almost always difficult to choose a single print to represent an artist, especially difficult with Legros.