Toulouse-Lautrec:
La Troupe de Mlle Eglantine
Click on the poster for a larger reproduction

JANE Avril commissioned this poster for her tour to London with three other dancers known as Eglantine (Wild Rose), Cléopatre, and Gazelle.

The London audiences found their performances far less racy than they expected of a French troupe, and the tour was not a great success.

From left to right we see Avril, Cléopatre, Eglantine, and Gazelle. Evidently jealousies divided the dancers into two camps, Avril and Eglantine against Cléopatre and Gazelle, and Lautrec seems to have enjoyed suggesting their squabble in choreographic terms.

The poster is a lively yellow and red, punctuated by red-brown legs stirring petticoats into a calligraphic froth. Its composition is based on a photograph, from which he abstracted the simplified lines of the poster, maintaining the sharp characterization of each dancer.

La Troupe de Mlle Eglantine
1896; Desloge 100; W P21c; D 361
Lithograph in three colors. 24 1/4 x 31 1/2 inches.
Text by another hand.
Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation, 1987:93

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