- Museum number
- 1968,0210.22
- Description
-
Portrait of Marcelle Lender, c.1893-5
Black chalk
- Production date
- 1893-1895 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 329 millimetres
-
Width: 222 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Marcelle Lender was one of the many stars of the café-concert whom Lautrec frequently portrayed. This study is close to the portrait of her in Lautrec`s lithograph 'Mademoille Lender et Baron' published in 1893 (Delteil 43; P&D 1949,0411.3616). Two other lithographs represent her dancing: 'Lender de face, dans Chilpéric', and 'Lender de dos, dansant le boléro dans Chilpéric'. With Yvette Guilbert and Jane Avril, she was one of Lautrec's favourite models.
Lit: Lit.: 'L Ermitage', no.6, June 1899 (repr.); M. Joyant, 'H. de Toulouse-Lautrec', 1927, II, p.208; M. Joyant, '70 dessins de Toulouse-Lautrec', 1930, no.43 (repr.); J. Lassaigne, 'Toulouse-Lautrec, 1939, p.III (repr.); H. Focillon, ' Dessins de Toulouse-Lautrec', 1959, p. 36 (repr.); M.G. Dortu, `Toulouse-Lautrec et son oeuvre`, Paris, 1971, no.D.3.766; P. Stein, in exhib.cat., New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London, BM, `French Drawings from Clouet to Seurat`, 2005, no.93.
The only son of wealthy aristocratic first cousins, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec inherited from his parents eccentricity and an artistic disposition, but was also plagued by a genetic disorder that left him dwarfed and crippled. It was in part because of the limitations imposed by these disabilities that his family allowed him to pursue a career as a painter in the French capital. He was initially placed in the studio of the respectable Leon Bonnat (1833-1922) and then with history painter Fernand Cormon (1845-192.4), where he mastered and then quickly disregarded academic training in favour of the colourful and seedy life of Montmartre. Lautrec found his subjects and his companions in the raunchy milieu where artists, writers and rebellious members of the privileged classes mixed with nightclub entertainers and prostitutes. His bohemian lifestyle fed the innovative quality of his work, although alcoholism and syphilis contributed to his early death at the age of thirty-six.
Lautrec was not disposed to art theory and did not belong to a particular school, although his work was undoubtedly influenced by Degas, Daumier and, like many of his generation, Japanese woodblock prints.(n.2) His flattening of form, bright colour and use of pattern can also be compared with other Post-Impressionist and Nabis artists. His technique was often brash and colourful, mirroring his subjects, and demonstrated an incisive use of line to capture telling gestures and poses in a sharp and unsentimental way. Although he painted occasional portraits, he was not disposed to flattery, and ultimately found his greatest success in the commercial world of posters, lithographs and illustration.
In addition to the commissioned posters advertising cabarets such as Le Moulin Rouge, a great number of Lautrec's independent prints drew their subjects from the garish world of the café concert. In contrast to Degas's studies of anonymous dancers (1968,0210.25), Lautrec immortalized the celebrities of the day. Grouped chronologically, his theatre subjects reveal a series of infatuations. Marcelle Lender,(n.3) for instance, was the object of an obsession that inspired an oil painting in addition to numerous prints and drawings, all executed between 1893 and 1895.(n.4) He was especially drawn to her performance as Galswinthe in the 1895; revival of Hervé's operetta `Chilpéric`.(n.5) According to Romain Coolus, a writer for `La Revue blanche`, Lautrec attended twenty performances, always sitting in the same seat, where he never tired of watching Lender dance the bolero in her low-cut gown.(n.6)
Lender epitomized Lautrec's feminine ideal: red hair, a chiselled nose, pointy chin and expressive eyes. In the BM drawing these features are emphasized by black chalk accents and set off by the dark choker at her neck. The pallor of her cheeks against the shading of the eye sockets and across the bridge of the nose suggests the type of artificial theatrical lighting that increasingly lent Lautrec's figures a lurid quality. Lit and seen from below, the London portrait of Marcelle Lender evokes in its viewpoint both the diminutive physical stature of the artist and his role as observer, always seated just below the stage.
Text by P. Stein, 2005 as cited above.
Notes
1 Two variations on this stamp (Lugt 1338) are identified in S. L. Optner, `Toulouse-Lautrec's Two Stamps', `Print Quarterly`, vol.XIII, no.4 (December 1996), pp.411-12.
2 The subject of Toulouse-Lautrec and Japonisme is explored by C. Ives in her `Toulouse-Lautrec` in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1996.
3 Marcelle Lender was the stage name of Anne-Marie Marcelle Bastien (1862-1926).
4 The painting, `Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in `Chilpéric`` is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (1990.127.1). For the prints, see L. Delteil, `H. de Toulouse-Lautrec`, vol.2 in `Le Peintre-Graveur illustré (XIX et XX siècles)` series, Paris, 1920, n.p., nos 41, 43, 58, 102-9, 163-4, 261 (this last considered by Götz Adriani to depict Jeanne Granier; see `Toulouse-Lautrec, The Complete Graphic Works: A Catalogue Raisonné`, The Gerstenherjj Collection, London, 1988, p.369, no.302). For the drawings see Dortu, 1971, op.cit., V, no.D.3.327, pp.550-1, VI, nos D.3.765, D.3.767, D.3.813, D.3.814, D.3.815, D.3.897, D.3.898, D.4.241, D.4.242, pp.734-7, 646-7, 662-3 and 740-41.
5 Hervé was the stage name of Florimond Ronger (1825-92); `Chilpéric` was first performed in 1868.
6 Quoted in J. Frey, `Toulouse-Lautrec: A Life`, New York, 1994, p.357.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1931, Paris, Arts Decoratifs, no.220
1938, Paris, Galerie des Quatre Chemins, no 42
1951, Paris, Orangerie, no.97
1954, Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne, no 203
1957, Nice, Palais de la Méditerranée, no.39
1968 Jun, BM, 'The César Mange de Hauke Bequest', no.15
1984, BM, Master Drawings & Watercolours, no.145
1996, BM, French Drawings in the BM, (no cat.)
2005/6 Nov-Jan, New York, Met Mus of Art, Clouet to Seurat/BM, no. 93
2006 June-Oct, BM, Clouet to Seurat/BM, no. 93
2012/13 Dec-April, Canberra, NG Australia, Toulouse-Lautrec
2016-17 Sept-Jan, BM, 'French Portrait Drawings' (no cat)
- Acquisition date
- 1968
- Acquisition notes
- Madame Theo van Rysselberghe owned the drawing when it was lent to the Paris exhibition in 1931 (see exhibition catalogue in the National Art Library at the V&A). Judging from the exhibition history, the drawing was probably in French ownership during the later 1930s.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1968,0210.22