Head of a Man
1886
Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros (French, 1837–1911)
Drawings
Head of a Man, 1886. Alphonse Legros (French, 1837–1911). Metalpoint; sheet: 31.5 x 23 cm (12 3/8 x 9 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2008.392 This drawing, which appears to be a portrait at first glance, is difficult to categorize. Alphonse Legros created many such images while teaching in London, at the school of South Kensington and then at the Slade School, where he advised his students to directly copy the Old Masters. Legros combined depiction of live models with references to art of the past, as seen here. He used the thin lines of metalpoint for expressive means on this sheet. The artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler encouraged Alphonse Legros to visit London in 1863, and he spent the rest of his life there.
- Maker/Artist
- Legros, Alphonse
- Classification
- Drawing
- Formatted Medium
- metalpoint
- Medium
- metalpoint
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 31.5 x 23 cm (12 3/8 x 9 1/16 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: signed, upper right, in metalpoint: A. Legros [underlined] / 1886 (according to Butkin records, above the preceding there is an inscription, currently covered by the mount, that reads "à mon ami F. W. Burton"); verso of secondary support, lower left, in graphite: Le gros [sideways]
- Departments
- Drawings
- Accession Number
- 2008.392
- Credit Line
- Bequest of Muriel Butkin
- Exhibitions
- French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin, <em>T. Edward Hanley Collection</em>. Philadelphia Museum of Art (1957).<br><br><em>Selections from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. T. Edward Hanley</em>, Gallery of Modern Art, New York (January 3 - March 12, 1967); Philadelphia Museum of Art (April 6 - May 28, 1967); Denver Art Museum (February 22 - April 30, 1968).<br><em><br>Visages du dix-neuvième siècle</em>, Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris (December 1 - 15, 1977).
- Rights Statement
- CC0
Have a concern, a correction, or something to add?
