Charles Holroyd

“ All varieties of art work were practised: sculpture, modelling, decoration, etching, medal-making and even gem-engraving. As Legros had casually picked up the art of etching by watching a comrade in Paris working at a commercial engraving, so he began making medals after studying Pisanello in the British Museum and the Cabinet des Médailles. ”

“ Many pictures and drawings by Legros besides those mentioned are in public galleries and in important private collections. At the Luxembourg, Paris, are the painting ‘L'Amende Honorable,’ ‘Dead Christ,’ and portrait of Gambetta, with bronzes, medals, and some twenty-two drawings. At Dijon is the ‘Ex Voto,’ his masterpiece. At the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, are landscapes, ‘The Tinker,’ the study of a head, and the portraits (among others) of Browning, Burne-Jones, and Huxley. At the National Gallery of British Art are ‘Femmes en prière’ and a portrait. ”

“ Champfleury, who noticed the work in the Salon, sought out the artist and enlisted him in the group of so-called ‘Realists,’ a school of protest against the academical trifles of the degenerate Romantics. Legros was already associated with men like Bonvin, Bracquemond, Fantin-Latour, Manet, and Ribot, and was dubbed ‘Realist’ more because it was the war-cry for the time than for any other reason. ”