Lot Essay
Elles consists of the following prints: Couverture; Frontispice pour Elles; La Clownesse assise (Mademoiselle Cha-u-kao); Femme au Plateau-Petit Déjeuner (Madame Baron et Mademoiselle Popo); Femme Couchée - Reveil; Femme au Tub - Le Tub; Femme qui se lave - La Toilette; Femme à Glace - La Glace à la Main; Femme qui se peigne - La Coiffure; Femme au Lit, Profil - Au Petit Lever; Femme en Corset - Conquette de Passage; and Femme sur le Dos - Lassitude.
'For present-day collectors and historians of lithography, 1896 is above all the year of Elles' Jean Adhémar, Toulouse-Lautrec, Lithographie-Pointes sèches, Paris, 1965, p. XXVIII
Between 1892 and 1895 Toulouse-Lautrec befriended and lived amoungst the prostitutes of the Maisons closes of the Rue des Moulins, the Rue d'Amboise and the Rue Joubert. Besides enjoying their bohemian life-style Lautrec was enamoured by their fastidiousness, frankness and their humour. He quickly gained their complete confidence and was allowed to paint and sketch at will as they went about their daily routines of entertaining clients, resting, grooming, washing and dressing. The culmination of his work was the completion of the Elles series in 1896.
The cover to the series is signed in pencil by Toulouse-Lautrec, the publisher Gustave Pellet was repsonsible for inscribing, numbering and stamping the rest of the prints which were exhibited for the first time in the gallery of the literary and artistic periodical La Plume at 31 Rue Bonaparte on 22 April, 1896.
The following year three of the prints were shown at the Salon des Indépendants and the complete set was exhibited again at La Libre Esthétique in Brussels. The art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard then exhibited the set in June of 1897 at his gallery at 41 Rue Lafitte. The set was offered either complete at 300 francs or as individual plates at 25 francs each.
Despite the publicity that the prints attracted, very few complete sets were sold at the time, most prints being sold individually over a period. The present series is numbered variously and are in uniformly fresh condition
'For present-day collectors and historians of lithography, 1896 is above all the year of Elles' Jean Adhémar, Toulouse-Lautrec, Lithographie-Pointes sèches, Paris, 1965, p. XXVIII
Between 1892 and 1895 Toulouse-Lautrec befriended and lived amoungst the prostitutes of the Maisons closes of the Rue des Moulins, the Rue d'Amboise and the Rue Joubert. Besides enjoying their bohemian life-style Lautrec was enamoured by their fastidiousness, frankness and their humour. He quickly gained their complete confidence and was allowed to paint and sketch at will as they went about their daily routines of entertaining clients, resting, grooming, washing and dressing. The culmination of his work was the completion of the Elles series in 1896.
The cover to the series is signed in pencil by Toulouse-Lautrec, the publisher Gustave Pellet was repsonsible for inscribing, numbering and stamping the rest of the prints which were exhibited for the first time in the gallery of the literary and artistic periodical La Plume at 31 Rue Bonaparte on 22 April, 1896.
The following year three of the prints were shown at the Salon des Indépendants and the complete set was exhibited again at La Libre Esthétique in Brussels. The art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard then exhibited the set in June of 1897 at his gallery at 41 Rue Lafitte. The set was offered either complete at 300 francs or as individual plates at 25 francs each.
Despite the publicity that the prints attracted, very few complete sets were sold at the time, most prints being sold individually over a period. The present series is numbered variously and are in uniformly fresh condition