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Legros painted the famous Scottish historian, essayist and philosopher sitting in a chair in three-quarter profile. It was painted four years after Legros’s former friend James McNeill Whistler’s famous portrait of Carlyle, his Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 2 of 1872-73. Whistler had chosen to paint Carlyle seated in profile, also dressed in a coat, but black rather than grey. The acerbic Carlyle was notoriously difficult to please. Despite his apparent contempt for artists he regarded portraits as important cultural documents so he allowed himself to be portrayed by many prominent artists of his time including G. F. Watts, J. E. Millais, and Thomas Woolner, and even lesser artists like Walter Greaves.

Left: Thomas Carlyle. George Frederic Watts RA (1817-1904). 1868. Oil on canvas, 26 in. x 21 in. (660 mm x 533 mm). Collection: © National Portrait Gallery, London NPG 1002 Given by George Frederic Watts, 1895. Right: Relief Portrait Medallion of Thomas Carlyle.. 1855. Bronze with a wooden surround walnut frame, signed T. Woolner Sc 1855, below the medallion, 11 ¼ inches (28.5 cm) in diameter including frame. Private Collection. [Click on images to enlarge them.]

On seeing Watts’s portrait of him of 1868 Carlyle had complained that Watts had made him look “like a mad labourer.’ He complained that Millais’s portrait of 1877 failed to please him while conceding that it was “surely striking like in every feature.” What he felt about Legros’s portrait is unknown.

When it was shown at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, no. 76, it was not well reviewed by critics. The critic of The Art Journal felt “his portrait of Thomas Carlyle shows a tendency towards caricature, and is decidedly crude in colour” (244) The young Oscar Wilde, when reviewing the first Grosvenor Gallery exhibition as an undergraduate, was also unimpressed: “His portrait of Mr. Carlyle is unsatisfactory” (124) The critic for The Portfolio’s only comment on the work was: “M. Legros’ large realism…or with Mr. Carlyle, is perhaps for the first time now seen en masse” (99). — Dennis T. Lanigan

Bibliography

“The Grosvenor Gallery.” The Art Journal New Series XVI (1877): 244.

“The Grosvenor Gallery.” The Portfolio VIII (1877): 97-99.

Wilde, Oscar. “The Grosvenor Gallery.” The Dublin University Magazine XM (July 1877): 118-26.

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Last modified 11 November 2022