Au Music-Hall: La Loïe Fuller

Details

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)
Au Music-Hall: La Loïe Fuller
thinned oil on paper laid down on board laid down on cradled panel
18½ x 13 in. (47 x 33 cm.)
Painted in 1892

Provenance

Léon Pédron, Paris; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 2 June 1926, lot 60 (with incorrect dimensions).
Yves Busser, Paris (acquired at the above sale).
Maurice Gobin, Paris.
Mrs. Lorin, Paris.
Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington (1970-1977).
Wildenstein & Co., New York.
Acquired from the above by the late owner, 1978.

Literature

M. Joyant, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paris, 1926, p. 276 (as Au Music-Hall; with incorrect dimensions).
P. Paret, Lautrec: femmes, Lausanne, 1969, p. 25 (illustrated in color).
M.G. Dortu, Toulouse-Lautrec et son oeuvre, New York, 1971, vol. II, p. 264, no. P.434 (illustrated, p. 265).
P. Huisman and M.G. Dortu, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paris, 1971, p. 55 (illustrated in color; as La Loïe Fuller).

Exhibited

Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Toulouse-Lautrec, trentenaire, April-May 1931, no. 87 (with incorrect dimensions).
Paris, Bernheim-Jeune & Cie., Cent ans de théâtre, Music-Hall et Cirque, May-July 1936, no. 92 (as La Loïe Fuller; with incorrect dimensions).

Lot Essay

The present painting depicts the legendary American dancer Loïe Fuller the year she first appeared at the Folies-Bergères in Paris. Her ethereal dances, such as "La Serpentine," "La Violette," "Le Papillon" and "La Danse Blanche," incorporated the use of twirling veils of silk illuminated by colored lights. The present picture was painted the same year as his masterpiece Au Moulin Rouge (Dortu P.427; coll. The Art Institute of Chicago) and it is part of almost a decade-long study of cabaret artists that Toulouse-Latrec began in the late 1880s.

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