Lot Essay
"During his early school years in Paris, before the age of ten, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec had been sent to a famous riding school and had begun to accompany his father to the races. 'In our family' he is reported to have said, 'once baptized, one is in the saddle'. So it is not surprising that when, after his accidents, someone asked him what he missed most he should have replied without hesitation, 'Horses'" (D. Cooper, Toulouse-Lautrec, London, 1955, p. 15).
Lautrec's interest in equestrian subjects was strengthened under the artistic instruction of the peintre sportif, René Princeteau, who was his tutor from 1878 to 1882. Moreover, visiting the Paris salons, Lautrec was drawn to the sporting pictures of the likes of George du Busson and John-Lewis Brown who specialised in pictures of the equestrian hobbies of an elegant anglophile society which centred on country hunts and the races in Bois de Boulogne.
Lautrec began by copying such artists, but by 1881 he was coming into his own: "His horses now were more likely to move than stand still. In addition, he developed a more animated method of applying paint: short, staccato hatchings produced greater dash and a bravura sketchiness that activated the painted surfaces and reinforced the enlivened drawing. He abandoned is murky browns, greys and greens, and lightened and brightened his palette..." (Murray, Toulouse-Lautrec: The Formative Years, Oxford, 1991, p. 20). Lautrec effectively breathed life into these racing and hunting subjects by painting them in an impressionist manner where brushwork and colour provided movement and animation.
Les Jockeys is amongst the most successful of the equestrian subjects executed between 1878 and 1882 and demonstrates the young artist's precocious talent. Lautrec's uncanny expression of movement and suspense on the racecourse is comparable to earlier examples by both Manet and Degas.
Lautrec's interest in equestrian subjects was strengthened under the artistic instruction of the peintre sportif, René Princeteau, who was his tutor from 1878 to 1882. Moreover, visiting the Paris salons, Lautrec was drawn to the sporting pictures of the likes of George du Busson and John-Lewis Brown who specialised in pictures of the equestrian hobbies of an elegant anglophile society which centred on country hunts and the races in Bois de Boulogne.
Lautrec began by copying such artists, but by 1881 he was coming into his own: "His horses now were more likely to move than stand still. In addition, he developed a more animated method of applying paint: short, staccato hatchings produced greater dash and a bravura sketchiness that activated the painted surfaces and reinforced the enlivened drawing. He abandoned is murky browns, greys and greens, and lightened and brightened his palette..." (Murray, Toulouse-Lautrec: The Formative Years, Oxford, 1991, p. 20). Lautrec effectively breathed life into these racing and hunting subjects by painting them in an impressionist manner where brushwork and colour provided movement and animation.
Les Jockeys is amongst the most successful of the equestrian subjects executed between 1878 and 1882 and demonstrates the young artist's precocious talent. Lautrec's uncanny expression of movement and suspense on the racecourse is comparable to earlier examples by both Manet and Degas.