Portrait of Alphonse Legros

Félix Bracquemond

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ever the restless printmaker, fourteen years after producing a portrait of his friend Alphonse Legros, Bracquemond modified the copper plate to create this second state. By significantly reducing the plate, he minimized all external details and drew attention to Legros’s face, and also, to his own mastery of etching’s various lines and myriad tonal effects. At this time Legros, a French artist who had moved to England in 1863, was teaching etching in London’s prestigious South Kensington School of Art before being appointed Slade Professor at University College London the following year. Fittingly, this print, with Legros as the subject and Bracquemond’s etching technique on display, was published as a celebratory marker of professional accomplishment in Alfred Cadart’s album "L’Eau-forte en 1875" ("Etching in 1875").

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art