Toulouse-Lautrec:
The Chap Book
Click on the poster for a larger reproduction

LAUTREC'S poster for the Anglo-American magazine The Chap Book shows a scene inside the Irish and American Bar on the rue Royale, which was one of the artist's own haunts.

It was much frequented by the horse-racing set and by coachmen. The man on the far right is identifiable as Rothschilds' driver Tom, and the barman is Ralph, a San Franciscan of Chinese and native North American descent.

Among the posters Lautrec made for journals, this one possesses the strongest design and most varied handling of printing techniques. His sure drawing of the figures contrasts with the "impressionistic" flowers and mirror behind Ralph the bartender and his assistant.

Lautrec avoids local color, for example the black of the coachmen's top hats and coats, and allows an overall yellow "spatter" (or in French crachis, meaning "spit," a pattern of dots flicked onto the lithographic stone from a brush) to suggest the effects of glaring, interior light. The color red, used solely on Tom the coachman's boutonniere, required its own color stone, a technical indulgence which delighted the artist.

The Chap Book
1895; Desloge 97; W P18b; D 362
Lithograph in five colors. 15 1/2 x 22 1/2 inches.
Artist's monogram lower left. Text by another hand.
Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation, 1987:88

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