Henri Fantin-Latour* (1836-1904)

Portrait d'Alphonse Legros (Portrait of Alphonse Legros)

Details

Henri Fantin-Latour* (1836-1904)
Portrait d'Alphonse Legros (Portrait of Alphonse Legros)
signed and dated 'Fantin 1858' (upper left)
oil on canvas
20 x 17 in. (52.1 x 45.1 cm.)
Painted in 1858

Provenance

Otto Schlderer, Frankfurt
Gustave Tempelaere, Paris (acquired from the Estate of the above, 1903) Paul Paix, Douai (by 1906)
H. W. Streit, Hambourg (1935)
Adolphe Stein, London (1970)
H. Shickman Gallery, New York (acquired by the present owner, 1971)

Literature

L. Bndite, "A propos des 'Peintres-Lithographes': Deux nouvelles oeuvres de Fantin-Latour", La revue de l'art ancien et moderne, vol. XIV, 1903, p. 380.
L. Bndite, "Fantin-Latour", Art et Dcoration, vol. XIX, May 1906, p. 156.
A. Jullien, Fantin-Latour, sa vie et ses amitis, Paris, 1909, pp. 18, 84-85 (illustrated opposite, p. 8).
Mme. Fantin-Latour, Catalogue de l'oeuvre complet de Fantin-Latour, Paris, 1911, no. 96.
F. Gibson, The Art of Fantin-Latour, London, 1920, p. 35.
M. Verrier, Fantin-Latour, London, 1977, p. 21.

Exhibited

London, Dutch Gallery, Fantin-Latour, 1903, no. 14.
Paris, Palais de l'Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Exposition de l'oeuvre de Fantin-Latour, May-June 1906, no. 16.
New York, H. Shickman Gallery, The Neglected 19th Century: An Exhibition of French Painting, February 1970, no. 13 (illustrated; titled Portrait of Delacroix).
Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais; Ottawa, Galerie Nationale du Canada; and San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor; Henri Fantin-Latour: A Retrospective Exhibition, November 1982- September 1983, no. 19 (illustrated).

Lot Essay

Fantin-Latour met Alphonse Legros at the Petit Ecole de Dessin. The two students spent much of their time copying the masters of the Louvre where Fantin was particularly drawn to seventeenth century Dutch models. The present painting shows Fantin-Latour working in a manner that was imitative of Rembrandt in both its technique and its atttempt to convey psychological insight. Legros is posed in a darkly lit interior with a single light source that highlights his features. The rapid brushwork and blurred contours show him working in a spontaneous manner to capture the "impression" of the moment at the expense of a high degree of finish. When he had finished Legros' portrait he sent it to their mutual friend, the artist Otto Scholderer who remarked, "The dark coloring is magnificent and the fleshtones are exceptionally good... the portrait is also a very good likeness" (Quoted in D. Druick, Henri Fantin-Latour, A Retrospective Exhibition, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 92). Fantin-Latour's portrait of Legros was painted one year before Legros' triumph at the Salon of 1859 with Angelus.

Galerie Brame & Lorenceau will include this painting in their forthcoming Fantin-Latour catalogue raisonn.