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Lot Essay
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Elles portfolio of 1896 is one of the most celebrated series in the history of printmaking and a masterpiece of 19th century lithography. In the years preceding its creation, the artist had become well acquainted with the prostitutes who lived and worked at the brothels of the rue des Moulins, rue d'Amboise and rue Joubert. As an aristocrat and a regular visitor and at times long-term guest of these so-called maisons closes, the artist lived both at the center and at the margins of Parisian life, flitting between but never fully erasing the boundaries of opposing social worlds.
The present composition, like many of the images in Elles, depicts a scene of daily life within a maison close. The artist’s treatment of the unidentified woman is sympathetic and unintrusive. He was more interested in exploring the complexities of living as a woman and a prostitute rather than eroticizing or sensationalizing their profession. Toulouse-Lautrec was attracted to their bohemian lifestyle and charmed by their fastidiousness, frankness and humor, and the familiarity and sense of ease the women in the portfolio felt towards the artist enabled him to capture them in moments of unguarded preoccupation. It is his ability to empathize with his subjects and his willingness to show them in all their human frailty and vulnerability—off-stage rather than in the spotlight—that sets him apart from most of his contemporaries.
“They were his friends as well as his models. He in turn had an uplifting effect on them. In his presence they were just women, and he treated them as equals. When he ate with them, often bringing a party of friends, they held their knives and forks daintily, restrained their conversation, had the feeling of being women of some standing. Lautrec's almost womanly intuition and sympathy shone like a light for them.”
(Jane Avril, quoted in: D. Sweetman, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Fin-de-Siècle, London, 1999, p. 341).
The influence of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts on Toulouse-Lautrec and the French avant-garde in general has often been pointed out. Inspired by the vivid, flat colors, strong contours and non-linear perspective, artists turned to color lithography as a truly modern medium, thereby changing the course of Western art and, at the time, causing a veritable “print rage”. In the case of the Elles series, Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have found inspiration in a specific masterpiece of Japanese printmaking, Kitagawa Utamaro’s Twelve Hours of the Green Houses, first published in 1795. In twelve images—one for each of the traditional Japanese hours of the day—the series depicts the activities of the women in a brothel, a so-called “green house”. Utamaro (1753-1806) had spent considerable time with the women of Yoshiwara, the amusement district of Edo, and for a while had even lived with them, as Lautrec had in Paris. Just as the French artist would do one hundred years later, Utamaro depicted the women in quiet, domestic scenes—dressing, washing, resting, but never with their customers. The connections between the two print series run deep, both formally and in spirit, and it seems that Toulouse-Lautrec modelled the Elles-series very consciously on the Japanese master’s example.
The portfolio was first exhibited in 1896 in the gallery of the literary and artistic periodical La Plume at 31 Rue Bonaparte on 22 April 1896. The art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard exhibited the series in June of 1897 at his gallery at 41 Rue Lafitte, where it was offered complete at 300 francs or individual lithographs at 25 francs each. The considerable price at the time reflected the high production value of the portfolio as well as the esteem in which Vollard held Toulouse-Lautrec as a printmaker. Despite the publicity and notoriety that the prints attracted, very few complete sets were sold at the time, most prints being sold individually over a longer period.
The present composition, like many of the images in Elles, depicts a scene of daily life within a maison close. The artist’s treatment of the unidentified woman is sympathetic and unintrusive. He was more interested in exploring the complexities of living as a woman and a prostitute rather than eroticizing or sensationalizing their profession. Toulouse-Lautrec was attracted to their bohemian lifestyle and charmed by their fastidiousness, frankness and humor, and the familiarity and sense of ease the women in the portfolio felt towards the artist enabled him to capture them in moments of unguarded preoccupation. It is his ability to empathize with his subjects and his willingness to show them in all their human frailty and vulnerability—off-stage rather than in the spotlight—that sets him apart from most of his contemporaries.
“They were his friends as well as his models. He in turn had an uplifting effect on them. In his presence they were just women, and he treated them as equals. When he ate with them, often bringing a party of friends, they held their knives and forks daintily, restrained their conversation, had the feeling of being women of some standing. Lautrec's almost womanly intuition and sympathy shone like a light for them.”
(Jane Avril, quoted in: D. Sweetman, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Fin-de-Siècle, London, 1999, p. 341).
The influence of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodcuts on Toulouse-Lautrec and the French avant-garde in general has often been pointed out. Inspired by the vivid, flat colors, strong contours and non-linear perspective, artists turned to color lithography as a truly modern medium, thereby changing the course of Western art and, at the time, causing a veritable “print rage”. In the case of the Elles series, Toulouse-Lautrec seems to have found inspiration in a specific masterpiece of Japanese printmaking, Kitagawa Utamaro’s Twelve Hours of the Green Houses, first published in 1795. In twelve images—one for each of the traditional Japanese hours of the day—the series depicts the activities of the women in a brothel, a so-called “green house”. Utamaro (1753-1806) had spent considerable time with the women of Yoshiwara, the amusement district of Edo, and for a while had even lived with them, as Lautrec had in Paris. Just as the French artist would do one hundred years later, Utamaro depicted the women in quiet, domestic scenes—dressing, washing, resting, but never with their customers. The connections between the two print series run deep, both formally and in spirit, and it seems that Toulouse-Lautrec modelled the Elles-series very consciously on the Japanese master’s example.
The portfolio was first exhibited in 1896 in the gallery of the literary and artistic periodical La Plume at 31 Rue Bonaparte on 22 April 1896. The art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard exhibited the series in June of 1897 at his gallery at 41 Rue Lafitte, where it was offered complete at 300 francs or individual lithographs at 25 francs each. The considerable price at the time reflected the high production value of the portfolio as well as the esteem in which Vollard held Toulouse-Lautrec as a printmaker. Despite the publicity and notoriety that the prints attracted, very few complete sets were sold at the time, most prints being sold individually over a longer period.