Alphonse Legros

 


L'Angélus (first exhibited 1859), sold at Christie's in 2016

    Alphonse Legros (1837-1911) was a Burgundian artist (born in Dijon) who moved to England in 1863, where he spent the rest of his life.



Rehearsing the Service, 1870

    According to The Connoisseur magazine in February 1912, "The well-known artist, whose death occurred in December last...was a man who practised in almost every branch of art, yet touched nothing but what he did well..." His L'Angélus was bought by a British collector, Sir F Seymour Haden, who encouraged him to come to Britain, and he then exhibited at the Royal Academy prolifically from 1864 until 1882. He became Slade Professor at University College, London, and a naturalised British subject, though his Wikipedia page says "Legros was never a fluent English speaker."

    The Connoisseur magazine article stated that while Slade Professor, he "exercised a wider influence over British art teaching than had been attained by any other artist, and to him more than any other man must be ascribed the wonderful progress in technique and achievement which English artists have made since the third quarter of the nineteenth century....his greatest creation of all was British art as it exists today."



The Tinker, 1874, now in the V & A





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