Toulouse-Lautrec ALS Re: Lithograph Series Featuring
Toulouse-Lautrec ALS Re: Lithograph Series Featuring French Cabaret Star
A 1p autograph letter in French pencil-inscribed and signed by Post-Impressionist artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) as "T Lautrec" at lower right. N.d., but context suggests circa 1894. N.p. Written on the first page of cream bifold stationery paper. The inner pages are blank. The outer page is inscribed in a different hand, with various arithmetical calculations possibly relating to other artists. Expected wear including paper folds. A former collector's pencil inscription is partly erased at top, else near fine. 4.375" x 7." Accompanied by a full English translation. Provenance: Ex-Noel Goldblatt (ca. 1926-2003) of the famous Goldblatt's Department Store, to a prominent Los Angeles, California collector.
In this letter to an unknown correspondent, Toulouse-Lautrec provided a pricing index for copies of the recently published album "Yvette Guilbert," for which he had provided lithographic illustrations.
Toulouse-Lautrec wrote, translated in part: "We are indeed speaking of the 'Yvette' de Geffroy. 50 f[rancs] for the public. 35 f[rancs] for you if that pleases you…"
The subject of the album was Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944), one of the most iconic cabaret singers of fin-de-siècle Paris. Art critic and champion of the Impressionists Gustave Geffroy (1855-1926) provided the album text, while Toulouse-Lautrec crafted seventeen original lithographs to accompany it (comprised of one album cover and sixteen lithographs.) "Yvette Guilbert" was published by André Marty and L'Estampe Originale in 1894.
Yvette Guilbert was a Parisian department store model before becoming a headlining act at the Moulin Rouge in 1890. With her slim figure and gaunt face, Guilbert did not subscribe to standards of buxom female beauty during that period. Yet Guilbert used this to her advantage, often accentuating her thinness by wearing trademark long black gloves and columnar dresses. Toulouse-Lautrec depicted Guilbert in numerous drawings, prints, posters, and paintings over his short-lived career (see attached image for an example.) He simplified Guilbert's signature physical characteristics in order to create instantly recognizable caricatures. Guilbert was just one of many underworld cabaret personalities that Toulouse-Lautrec depicted; others included Aristide Bruant, Jane Avril, Marcelle Lender, and La Goulue.
The introductory text of "Yvette Guilbert" and its companion lithograph demonstrate how Geffroy and Toulouse-Lautrec viewed Guilbert as representing more than just an individual. To them, she was uniquely emblematic of a time and place, that is, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Montmartre. She symbolized all of the contradictions of the era; she was at once fascinating and disgusting, inspiring and depressing, ugly and seductive.
Geffroy wrote, translated in part: "Before knowing what she [Guilbert] sings, one hears that she sings well and that she says it well. This is her first secret: she pronounces, she articulates, she dispatches the words in every room, or past the Champs-Élysées garden, she pierces the fog of the tobacco smoke, the alcohol vapor, the mist of many breaths. Each syllable arrives in an arrow, shot from the throat, from the teeth, from the tongue, delivered on a clear, ringing wave, transparent, at once firm and frail like a vibrant crystal. Her second secret, it is her flair as a singer, her smell of the aroma of the rottenness known as the turn-of-the-century, -- the odious word without significance that nevertheless acquires one, that one is resigned to write about. She is found there deliberately made up like a gay and macabre statue, in the flesh, in clear dress and in black gloves, to make her bored and biting voice heard, which sings like a wedding song over funeral music…"
This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.
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Toulouse-Lautrec ALS Re: Lithograph Series Featuring French Cabaret Star
A 1p autograph letter in French pencil-inscribed and signed by Post-Impressionist artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) as "T Lautrec" at lower right. N.d., but context suggests circa 1894. N.p. Written on the first page of cream bifold stationery paper. The inner pages are blank. The outer page is inscribed in a different hand, with various arithmetical calculations possibly relating to other artists. Expected wear including paper folds. A former collector's pencil inscription is partly erased at top, else near fine. 4.375" x 7." Accompanied by a full English translation. Provenance: Ex-Noel Goldblatt (ca. 1926-2003) of the famous Goldblatt's Department Store, to a prominent Los Angeles, California collector.
In this letter to an unknown correspondent, Toulouse-Lautrec provided a pricing index for copies of the recently published album "Yvette Guilbert," for which he had provided lithographic illustrations.
Toulouse-Lautrec wrote, translated in part: "We are indeed speaking of the 'Yvette' de Geffroy. 50 f[rancs] for the public. 35 f[rancs] for you if that pleases you…"
The subject of the album was Yvette Guilbert (1865-1944), one of the most iconic cabaret singers of fin-de-siècle Paris. Art critic and champion of the Impressionists Gustave Geffroy (1855-1926) provided the album text, while Toulouse-Lautrec crafted seventeen original lithographs to accompany it (comprised of one album cover and sixteen lithographs.) "Yvette Guilbert" was published by André Marty and L'Estampe Originale in 1894.
Yvette Guilbert was a Parisian department store model before becoming a headlining act at the Moulin Rouge in 1890. With her slim figure and gaunt face, Guilbert did not subscribe to standards of buxom female beauty during that period. Yet Guilbert used this to her advantage, often accentuating her thinness by wearing trademark long black gloves and columnar dresses. Toulouse-Lautrec depicted Guilbert in numerous drawings, prints, posters, and paintings over his short-lived career (see attached image for an example.) He simplified Guilbert's signature physical characteristics in order to create instantly recognizable caricatures. Guilbert was just one of many underworld cabaret personalities that Toulouse-Lautrec depicted; others included Aristide Bruant, Jane Avril, Marcelle Lender, and La Goulue.
The introductory text of "Yvette Guilbert" and its companion lithograph demonstrate how Geffroy and Toulouse-Lautrec viewed Guilbert as representing more than just an individual. To them, she was uniquely emblematic of a time and place, that is, turn-of-the-twentieth-century Montmartre. She symbolized all of the contradictions of the era; she was at once fascinating and disgusting, inspiring and depressing, ugly and seductive.
Geffroy wrote, translated in part: "Before knowing what she [Guilbert] sings, one hears that she sings well and that she says it well. This is her first secret: she pronounces, she articulates, she dispatches the words in every room, or past the Champs-Élysées garden, she pierces the fog of the tobacco smoke, the alcohol vapor, the mist of many breaths. Each syllable arrives in an arrow, shot from the throat, from the teeth, from the tongue, delivered on a clear, ringing wave, transparent, at once firm and frail like a vibrant crystal. Her second secret, it is her flair as a singer, her smell of the aroma of the rottenness known as the turn-of-the-century, -- the odious word without significance that nevertheless acquires one, that one is resigned to write about. She is found there deliberately made up like a gay and macabre statue, in the flesh, in clear dress and in black gloves, to make her bored and biting voice heard, which sings like a wedding song over funeral music…"
This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.
WE PROVIDE IN-HOUSE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE!
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