Toulouse-Lautrec:
Elles par HTL
Click on the poster for a larger reproduction

THIS poster advertises the album of eleven lithographs published by Lautrec as Elles (the feminine form of "they"), which were first exhibited under the auspices of the journal La Plume at the Salon des Cent on April 22, 1896. The series consists mainly of scenes from the private, off-duty life of high-class prostitutes and kept women.

The cover, frontispiece, and poster of the Elles series each employ the same image of a woman unknotting her hair before a full-length mirror indicated by vertical strokes of reflected light. At first glance this appears to be a delicate tribute to that aspect of feminine beauty most highly admired in the nineteenth century, hair. But the album's actual theme is subtly announced in the pair of hats in the foreground.

Elles par HTL
1896; Desloge 51; W 155; D 179
Lithograph in four colors. 21 1/4 x 15 3/4 inches.
Third state; poster edition. Text by another hand.
Gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation, 1987:74

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