Peasant Women from Near Boulogne
1873
Medium
Etching on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Plate: 22.8 × 14.9 cm (9 × 5 7/8 in.); Sheet: 36.2 × 25.1 cm (14 5/16 × 9 15/16 in.)
Classification
etching
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
18942
Art Historical Context
Alphonse Legros's *Peasant Women from Nearlogne* (1873) is a poignant etching on cream laid paper, housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's and Drawings department. Measuring 22.8 × 14.9 cm on the plate, this intimate work captures the quiet dignity of rural life along the northern French coast near Boulogne-sur-Mer. Legros, a masterful 19th-century printmaker drew inspiration from everyday scenes, rendering these women with a realist's eye for texture and form. Etching, Legros's preferred medium, involves coating a copper plate with acid-resistant ground, scratching lines through it, and imm...
About the Artist
Alphonse Legros · 1837–1911
Alphonse Legros (1837–1911) was born in Dijon, France, and trained in Paris at the drawing school of Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose unconventional teaching method — which emphasised memory drawing and acute observation over academic convention — would leave a lasting mark on Legros's practice. At Lecoq's school he formed friendships with Jules Dalou and Auguste Rodin that endured throughout hi...