Lot Essay
Like Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec was fascinated by the demi-monde of brothels and nightclubs. The most fashionable and luxurious of these bordellos were those on the rue des Moulins. Richard Thompson writes:
"Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings of the Paris brothels, Les maisons closes, are perhaps his most notorious images. Their reputation dates back to the scurrilous journalism of Lautrec's lifetime, when the brothel paintings were taken by hostile journalists as an index of his personal infamy . . . " (R. Thompson, Toulouse-Lautrec, exh. cat., op. cit., 1996, p. 406).
This work first belonged to Gustave Pellet. Once a wealthy collector, Pellet had been forced to become a print publisher after the financial crisis of 1886, and specialized in works of a quasi-erotic character, such as those of Rops and Maurin. He had known Toulouse-Lautrec for some time and was enthusiastic about his work, and in 1896 published a set of the artist's prints at his own expense. The album, entitled Elles and made up of ten plates, reveals the intimate world of les maisons closes, in the manner of the present work.
"Toulouse-Lautrec's paintings of the Paris brothels, Les maisons closes, are perhaps his most notorious images. Their reputation dates back to the scurrilous journalism of Lautrec's lifetime, when the brothel paintings were taken by hostile journalists as an index of his personal infamy . . . " (R. Thompson, Toulouse-Lautrec, exh. cat., op. cit., 1996, p. 406).
This work first belonged to Gustave Pellet. Once a wealthy collector, Pellet had been forced to become a print publisher after the financial crisis of 1886, and specialized in works of a quasi-erotic character, such as those of Rops and Maurin. He had known Toulouse-Lautrec for some time and was enthusiastic about his work, and in 1896 published a set of the artist's prints at his own expense. The album, entitled Elles and made up of ten plates, reveals the intimate world of les maisons closes, in the manner of the present work.