Cover for L'Estampe originale, Album I, publiée par les Journal des Artistes

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Print albums were a popular means for dealers and publishers to promote the work of artists. These portfolios ranged widely in quality and price and offered collectors a preassembled and expertly chosen selection of contemporary art. Published from 1893 to 1895, L’Estampe Originale was among the most popular examples of the genre, in spite of its short lifespan. Toulouse-Lautrec’s cover for the inaugural edition shows the expert printer Père Cotelle presenting cabaret performer Jane Avril with a newly printed artwork. In this depiction of his two close friends, Toulouse-Lautrec intended to suggest the modernity and stylishness of lithography during the 1890s.

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