Jane Avril

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Lautrec’s graphic posters—for performers, like Jane Avril, or dance halls, like the Moulin Rouge—embody the ebullient, frenetic spirit of the nightlife in fin-de-siècle Paris. Avril, a lifelong friend of the artist, commissioned this print to advertise her cabaret show at the Jardin de Paris in 1893. Lautrec’s bold composition is characterized by a radically skewed perspective, severe cropping, flattened forms, and sinuous lines—such as those describing Avril’s frilly costume. The “cancan” kick of Avril’s leg, one of her signature dance moves, finds a formal echo in the vertical thrust of the double-bass, gripped by an unseen musician. To create this print, Lautrec used several lithographic stones, one for each color—inky black, acidic orange, yellow, and green.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art