1896
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Elles is a 1896 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a woman in a loose chemise, leaning against a wall in a dimly lit room. Lautrec spent months in Paris brothels, not as a client but as a friend. The women let him sketch them while they waited for customers or played cards. He shows them tired, bored, or lost in thought—not glamorous, just real. Look up other works in the series *Elles* at The Cleveland Museum of Art.
The French publisher Gustave Pellet, hoping to attract new customers, persuaded Lautrec to make a series of ten prints, plus frontispiece and cover, depicting brothels. Although it was not unusual to see prostitutes pictured in the popular press, Lautrec was the first well-known, successful artist to tackle this subject. The set was a commercial failure when it first appeared, perhaps because the scenes are not erotic. Lautrec had said that "they are women to my liking," and between 1892 and 1895 he often lived in various Parisian brothels for weeks at a time. This allowed him to witness the…
The top hat seen at left alludes to the presence of a male patron in this frontispiece to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's lithographic series about prostitution.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (French: ), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator.
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