About the Artwork
Toulouse-Lautrec was from an aristocratic family, but he spent his adult life among the common people of Montmartre, and its cafés, cabarets, dance halls, and theater were the subjects of his art. In 1895 he became enthralled with Marcelle Lender, the star of the comic opera Chilpéric, in which she wore a headdress with two giant red poppies. He is said to have attended the show 20 nights in a row to watch her dance the bolero. Lender became the subject of several lithographs by Lautrec. Here he depicts her in mid-performance, her mouth open in song as she leans towards her audience. The focus on Lender’s head and shoulders points to the influence of nineteenth-century Japanese woodblock portraits of famous kabuki performers that had been recently imported into France. This technically difficult lithograph, which required eight stones, one for each exquisite color, exemplifies Lautrec’s mastery of the medium.
From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)
Mademoiselle Marcelle Lender, en buste
1895
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec
1864-1901
French
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Lithograph printed in color ink on cream wove paper
Image: 13 × 9 3/4 inches (33 × 24.8 cm) Sheet: 14 1/2 × 11 inches (36.8 × 27.9 cm)
Prints
Prints, Drawings & Photographs
Museum Purchase, Graphic Arts Council Purchase Fund
2007.149
Public Domain
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Provenance
2007-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)For more information on provenance, please visit:
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec, Mademoiselle Marcelle Lender, en buste, 1895, lithograph printed in color ink on cream wove paper. Detroit Institute of Arts, Museum Purchase, Graphic Arts Council Purchase Fund, 2007.149.
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