The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 7, 2023

Head of a Man

1886

Alphonse Legros

(French, 1837–1911)

France, 19th century

Metalpoint

Support: White clay-coated board, laid down on cardboard, overmatted with cardboard mount

Sheet: 31.5 x 23 cm (12 3/8 x 9 1/16 in.)

Bequest of Muriel Butkin 2008.392

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

The artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler encouraged Alphonse Legros to visit London in 1863, and he spent the rest of his life there.

Description

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.

Inscriptions

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]

Provenance
by 1957-before 1967
T. Edward Hanley, Bradford, PA 1
1977-2008
Muriel Butkin [1916-2008], Shaker Heights, OH, by bequest to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
2008-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Provenance Footnotes

1 According to old exhibition labels, now removed.
Citations
Selections from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. T. Edward Hanley. Exh. Cat. New York: Gallery of Modern Art, 1967. Mentioned: p. 63
Visages du dix-neuvième siècle. Exh. Cat. Paris: Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, 1977. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 25
Foster, Carter E., Sylvain Bellenger, and Patrick Shaw Cable. French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Mentioned: pp. 118-19, 143, no. 54; Reproduced: p. 119
Exhibition history

T. Edward Hanley Collection. Philadelphia Museum of Art (1957).

Selections from the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. T. Edward Hanley, 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).

Visages du dix-neuvième siècle, Galerie Jacques Fischer-Chantal Kiener, Paris (December 1 - 15, 1977).

French Master Drawings from the Collection of Muriel Butkin. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 26-October 28, 2001); Dahesh Museum of Art (February 19-May 18, 2002).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2008.392