Miss Loïe Fuller

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Loïe Fuller was famous in turn-of-the-century Paris for her dazzling performances which combined dance, colored electric lights, and music. In this print, inspired by her appearance at the Folies Bergère, Lautrec captures the decorative effect of her billowing silk gown, which she manipulated with large poles held in her hands. Lautrec executed about sixty versions of this print in a variety of colored inks, including gold and silver.

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