A Woman and a Man on Horseback

A Woman and a Man on Horseback

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The early career of Toulouse-Lautrec was largely shaped by his first teacher, René Princeteau, a close family friend who was a deaf-mute and a painter of fashionable sporting pictures. The elegantly outfitted riders in this sketch may have been observed on the artist's family estate in Albi, in southern France, where his eccentric and aristocratic father kept a full stable. Lautrec's love of animals would last throughout his life, and a number of his mature works depict horses ridden by jockeys or controlled by circus trainers.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Woman and a Man on HorsebackA Woman and a Man on HorsebackA Woman and a Man on HorsebackA Woman and a Man on HorsebackA Woman and a Man on Horseback

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.