Toulouse-Lautrec:
The Ault & Wiborg Co.
Click on the poster for a larger reproduction

THIS lithograph represents Lautrec's only American poster commission which came from the ink manufacturers Ault & Wiborg of Cincinnati. The poster is also his only work printed on zinc rather than stone. Its medium, and small scale were dictated by the necessity of sending the plates across the Atlantic for printing.

His design showing a couple in a box at a concert was certainly printed in ink, but otherwise has little to do with the company's product. It is typical of the occasional disparity between Lautrec's imagery and the thing that is meant to be advertised. The promotional lure, one used extensively in the nineteenth century, is simply a colorful depiction of a pretty young woman.

The image brings out the subtle psychological tensions which Lautrec often sensed in theatre audiences. Seated together in a loge, the man and woman seem to be in two different worlds: she follows the performance with program in hand, he appears lost in a melancholy reverie. The pair are reminiscent of Jane Avril and the critic Edouard Dujardin in the poster Divan Japonais although the actual models were probably the actress Emilienne d'Alençon and the banker Henri Fourcade.

The Ault & Wiborg Co.
1896; Desloge 107; W P28c; D 365
Lithograph in five colors. 15 x 10 3/4 inches.
Artist's monogram lower right. Text by another hand.
Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation, 1987:68

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