"Au Theatre Libre, Antoine dans L'Inquietude"

Click On The Picture To See A Larger Image

Click Here To View Additional Toulouse-Lautrec Works

(1893)

< Prev / Next >

"Au Theatre Libre, Antoine dans L'Inquietude", 1893, lithograph, with full margins, 372x263mm; 14 3/4" x 10 1/2". Edition of 100.  Numbered 20 in pencil, lower left.  With the artist's red ink stamp (Lugt 1338, lower left recto). A very good impression [Delteil 51; Adhemar 55; Adriana 56].

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) was descended from the counts of Toulouse. He was an able student, but plagued with delicate health.  In 1878 he broke his left thigh and 1879 his right, thereby causing his legs to ceased to grow as his torso matured. His grotesque appearance affected his entire life; isolating him, restricting his activities and causing him to live a life within the mind.  He began painting in 1878 and by 1885 was developing a style of his own. He had found a theme in public entertainment and a style emphasizing line, pattern and unmodulated color.

By 1890, Toulouse-Lautrec had established his style. It was developed out of Impressionism and closest to Degas. He focused on acquiring a look of easy, casual sketches with forms so completely reduced to essentials that they are little more than silhouettes.  He made use of facial expression to communicate character or an emotional state sometimes exaggerating features to the point of caricature.   A master of drawing in the tradition of Degas, Lautrec combined precise and expressive line with oblique or unusually high or low points of view.  Above all, Toulouse-Lautrec's lithographic artwork established a directness of appeal and empathy for the carnivalesque atmosphere patronized by Parisians of the later 19th century.

This Toulouse-Lautrec lithograph is in a 24 3/4" x 29" European styled heavily antiqued dark gold with red under-toned frame with a raised lip matching the wood fillet.  The rawhide denim outer and dark smoky gray rag inner mats are acid and lignin free and are protected with Acrylite-AR OP3 (UV) by CYRO ......... SOLD