Elles (portfolio cover)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Elles, a series of ten lithographs devoted to the theme of prostitutes, was based on Lautrec's observations of daily life inside a Parisian brothel where he resided briefly in 1894. The prints are highly original in their representation of mundane aspects of the prostitutes' existence, particularly moments of intimacy and friendship. In this image, a prostitute loosens her hair in preparation for an unseen male client, whose doffed top hat rests on the clotheshorse in the foreground (the prostitute's frilly blue hat is on the bed at left). The decorative, curving silhouette of the woman's blue robe, echoed by the swoop of her orange hair, suggests the influence of Art Nouveau.

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