Louis Legrand

L'Aieule (The Grandmother)

1904

A L'Ombre (In Shadow) Etching & drypoint, 1905 Signed with the red stamp of the publisher Pellet (see photo) Edition: 50 on velin paper, signed and numbered Publisher: Gustav Pellet, Paris (his red stamp lower right, recto; Lugt 1193) Condition: Excellent Image/Plate size: 5-7/8 x 8-5/8" (14.8 x 21.8 cm.) Sheet size: 11 5/8 x 17 1/8" Reference: IFF 119 Exteens 229 Arwas 256 v/V 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...

Mademoiselle Sablon, MUSCIAL ACTRESS Lithograph, 1907 Unsigned Provenance: estate of the artist Reference: Belleroche No. K383 Albert Belleroche Log of lithographs, AB698 Edition: c. 10 Condition: excellent Image size: 20 x 17 inches Sheet size: 24 1/4 x 18 1/2 inches Albert Gustavus de Belleroche, also known as Albert Belleroche, (22 October 1864 – 14 July 1944) was a Welsh-born painter and lithographer, who lived most of his childhood and his adulthood in Paris and England. He began as a painter, but at the turn of the century focused on lithography, for which he is most well-known. He was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre de Leopold by King Albert I of Belgium in 1933. Early life Albert de Belleroche, Lithograph of the artist's mother, Mrs. Harry Vane Milbank, circa 1900 Albert Gustavus De Belleroche was born on 22 October 1864 in Swansea. His parents were Brusseler Alice and Edward Charles, the Marquis de Belleroche, who died when he was three years old. His mother was the daughter of Desire Baruch. In March 1871, she married Harry Vane Millbank, the son of MP Frederick Milbank. He grew up in Paris and London and he used the surname Milbank until he was 30 years of age. He attained the title of count from his father's family of French Huguenot ancestry. Career and personal life La Danseuse (model Lili Grenier), circa 1890 In 1882, Belleroche studied briefly at Carolus-Duran's art school in Paris, preferring to study the masters like Johannes Vermeer and Sandro Botticelli at museums. He was a friend and studio-mate of John Singer Sargent in Paris and London, with the men making many sketches and paintings of each other. Some of the works that Sargent made of Belleroche are suggestive of an emotional relationship between the men and Belleroche may have been the love of Sargent's life. Dorothy Moss, an art historian, states "Sargent's portraits of Belleroche, in their sensuality and intensity of emotion, push the boundaries of what was considered appropriate interaction between men at this period." Belleroche was financially independent and did not need or desire to obtain work through commissions. Instead, he chose who he would paint, which included Japanese wrestler...

This artwork titled "L'Ame du Poete (The Soul of the Poet)" 1901, is an original etching and aquatint by renown French artist Louis Auguste Mathieu Legrand, 1863-1951. Signed in the ...

Il Ressemble à Ernest is an Original Etching and Drypoint realized by Willette (Adolphe Leon). Good condition on a yellowed paper. signed on plate on the lower left corner and titl...