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Lot Essay
In 1888 Lautrec was asked to contribute illustrations to a chic bourgeois magazine, Paris Illustré. His first submission accompanies an article on masked balls. His most significant contribution, however, appeared in the July 1888 issue; four illustrations accompanied an article written by Emile Michelet on the subject of summer in Paris, or L'été à Paris.
Michelet's text focused on the unfortunate Parisians who were forced to spend the summer in the city. The bourgeois could afford to escape the treachery of summertime in the burgeoning capital, while the poor were constrained to stay. While Lautrec's images do not directly illustrate the text, Le côtier appears to allude to a contemporary song by Aristide Bruant of the same title. Bruant's song makes a comparison between "two outcasts: the ancient horse who can only climb the hill with great difficulty, and the old driver who cannot spend his last days in peace, in spite of a life of toil" (quoted in R. Thompson et al, op. cit, p. 196). Indeed it is remarkably similiar in subject to an 1889 illustration of the same song by fellow artist Théophile Steinlen.
The other illustrations that accompanied the Michelet text were Cavaliers se rendant au Bois de Boulogne, a motif of riders going to the Bois de Boulogne; La blanchisseuse, a tired woman waiting to carry her heavy basket of washing across the street; and Un jour de première communion, in which a girl in a white dress and veil is seen walking across to mass with her family. It has been suggested that in Côtier de la compagnie des omnibus, Lautrec has depicted himself wearing checked trousers standing on the platform of a bus.
Michelet's text focused on the unfortunate Parisians who were forced to spend the summer in the city. The bourgeois could afford to escape the treachery of summertime in the burgeoning capital, while the poor were constrained to stay. While Lautrec's images do not directly illustrate the text, Le côtier appears to allude to a contemporary song by Aristide Bruant of the same title. Bruant's song makes a comparison between "two outcasts: the ancient horse who can only climb the hill with great difficulty, and the old driver who cannot spend his last days in peace, in spite of a life of toil" (quoted in R. Thompson et al, op. cit, p. 196). Indeed it is remarkably similiar in subject to an 1889 illustration of the same song by fellow artist Théophile Steinlen.
The other illustrations that accompanied the Michelet text were Cavaliers se rendant au Bois de Boulogne, a motif of riders going to the Bois de Boulogne; La blanchisseuse, a tired woman waiting to carry her heavy basket of washing across the street; and Un jour de première communion, in which a girl in a white dress and veil is seen walking across to mass with her family. It has been suggested that in Côtier de la compagnie des omnibus, Lautrec has depicted himself wearing checked trousers standing on the platform of a bus.