Gerald Leslie Brockhurst

Amberley Boy, No. 2

1928

The Chinese Robe Etching, 1982 Signed, titled, and dated in pencil lower margin (see photos) Annotated A.P. (see photo) Condition: Excellent Image/Plate size...

L'enfant prodigue: en pays etranger (The Prodigal Son: In Foreign Climes) Etching, 1881 Unsigned (as usual for this state) From: L'enfant prodigue, (The Prodigal Son, five plates) Ed...

L'Aieule (The Grandmother) Etching and aquatint printed in colors, 1904 Signed with the red stamp of the publisher, Gustave Pellet, Lugt 1193 and numbered (see photo) Edition: 100 (81/100) Reference: Arwas 202 iv/IV IFF 98 Condition: Excellent, the sheet aged as usual Image size: 14 1/4 x 18 5/8" Sheet size: 16 15/16 x 24 1/4" Louis Auguste Mathieu Legrand (29 September 1863 – 1951) was a French artist, known especially for his aquatint engravings, which were sometimes erotic. He was awarded the Légion d'honneur for his work in 1906. Life Legrand was born in the city of Dijon in the east of France. He worked as a bank clerk before deciding to study art part-time at Dijon's Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He won the Devosge prize at the school in 1883.[2] In 1884 Legrand studied engraving under the Belgian printmaker Félicien Rops. Legrand's artworks include etchings, graphic art and paintings. His paintings featured Parisian social life. Many were of prostitutes, dancers and bar scenes, which featured a sense of eroticism. According to the Hope Gallery, "Louis Legrand is simply one of France's finest early twentieth century masters of etching." His black and white etchings especially provide a sense of decadence; they have been compared to those of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, though his drawings of the Moulin Rouge, the can-can dance and the young women of Montmartre preceded Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings of similar scenes. He made over three hundred prints of the night life of Paris. They demonstrate "his remarkable powers of observation and are executed with great skill, delicacy, and an ironic sense of humor that pervades them all." Two of his satirical artworks caused him to be tried for obscenity. The first, "Prostitution" was a symbolic drawing which depicted a naked girl being grasped by a dark monster which had the face of an old woman and claws on its hands; the second, "Naturalism", showed the French novelist Émile Zola minutely studying the thighs of a woman with a magnifying glass. Defended by his friend the lawyer Eugène Rodrigues-Henriques (1853–1928), he was found not guilty in the lower court, but was convicted in the appeal court and then given a short prison sentence for refusing to pay his fine. Legrand was made famous by his colour illustrations for Gil Blas magazine's coverage of the can-can, with text by Rodrigues (who wrote under the pseudonym Erastene Ramiro). It was a tremendous success, with the exceptional quantity of 60,000 copies of the magazine being printed and instantly sold out in 1891. In 1892, at the instigation of the publishing house Dentu, Legrand made a set of etchings of his Gil Blas illustrations. The etchings were published in a book, Le Cours de Danse Fin de Siecle (The End of the Century Dance Classes). Legrand took a holiday in Brittany, which inspired him to engrave a set of fourteen lithographs of simple country life called Au Cap de la Chevre (On Goat Promontory). It was published by Gustave Pellet who became a close friend of Legrand's. Pellet eventually published a total of 300 etchings by Legrand, who was his first artist; he also published Toulouse-Lautrec and Félicien Rops among others. He did not only work in graphics; he exhibited paintings at the Paris salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts starting in 1902. In 1906 he was made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. Legrand died in obscurity in 1951. A retrospective exhibition was held at the Félicien Rops museum in Namur, Belgium in 2006 to celebrate his graphic art. The art collector Victor Arwas published a catalogue raisonné for the occasion. Books illustrated de Maupassant, Guy: Cinq Contes Parisiens, 1905. Poe, Edgar Alan: Quinze Histoires d'Edgar Poe...

Le Gamin (The Kid) Etching on laid paper, 1862 Signed in the plate upper left (see photo) As published in Theodore Duret, L'Histoire d'Edouard Manet et de Son Ouvre, 1902 (The first ...

London: J. Taylor, 1820. Etching and aquatint with engraving on cream wove paper with a gilded edge, 11 1/2 x 14 3/4 inches (290 x 374 mm), full margins. Small spots of adhesive residue from a former mount at each edge on the recto. Light ghost impression in the area of the sky. Scattered minor areas of light brown discoloration, with a 3 3/4 inch horizontal edge loss along the lower left sheet edge, outside of the platemark. Colors remain fresh. Plate No. 3 from Wonders: Images of the Ancient World. Likely printed 1828. A view of the Temple of Hercules Victor...

Paris: Gazette de Beaux Arts, 1907. Etching with aquatint on cream wove paper, 8 7/8 x 11 1/2 inches (225 x 292 mm), narrow lefthand margin, with a full margin with a deckle edge on ...

THOMAS ROWLANDSON (1757 - 1827) THE SUCCESSFUL FORTUNE HUNTER - Our Captain Shelalee Leading Miss Morrowfat to the Temple of Hyman, 1802 issued in 18...

A beautiful, dark impression of a bucolic cow path. Etching with drypoint on heavy cream wove paper, 6 5/8 x 9 7/8 inches (174 x 248 mm), full margins. Uniform light brown discolorat...