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- Artists
- Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de
 - Edition Details
| Year: | 1893 | | Class: | Poster | | Status: | Official | | Technique: | Lithograph | | Size: | 37 X 50.8 |
- EB Awards
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- Series
- Les Maitre de L'Affiches 110
- Comments
- Add Comment
Brush and spatter 5-Color Lithograph. Printed in: olive green, yellow, orange, red and black. Printed on one sheet.
Artist's signature and date and distributor's name and address middle lower edge, printer's name and address lower left margin.
****Exact Edition Number Unknown
This poster was used to advertise Jane Avril's appearance- much celebrated in the press- at the Jardin de Paris, a new cafe concert on the Champs Elysees. In a letter to Andre Marty of 2 June 1893 the artist remarked that his poster would appear the next day. With the approval of the management Jane Avril had commissioned the poster from Lautrec, whose work she admired. Apart from Bruant, she was the only one with sufficient faith in his powers of invention to set him to work on her publicity.
One of Lautrec�s most famous and compelling color posters, it was commissioned by Jane Avril in 1899, a popular performer of Montmartre's dance-halls, who remained faithful to the artist to the last, and printed by Stern during the course of that year. As with many of Lautrec's work, he depicts the female silhouette drawn in black and cut off at the ankles. His subject rises from the edge of the paper, arched diagonally to the left in a serpentine curve, her pose resembling the shape of a coiled snake. Lautrec uses red for the performer's large, feathered hat, for her ruffled cuffs and the trim of her hem, in sharp contrast to her bright yellow hair. Coiling around her body is a rainbow colored snake, its head drawn between her protruding breasts. The performer raises her hands to her head, holding her hat and tilting her head back with an ambiguous expression. Her mouth is slightly opened expressing alarm or ecstasy. Whatever expression Lautrec meant his female subject to convey is open for interpretation but it may explain the harsh criticism the poster received at the time. Jane Avril's expression, that of fear, has been compared to Edvard Munch's 1893 work The Scream, which Henri must certainly had seen reproduced in La Revue blanche in 1896, if not he may have seen it exhibited in Paris. Munch's work was shown twice in Paris in 1896, the same year that Jane Avril played the role of Anitra in Ibsen's Peer Gynt for which Munch designed the poster. Although not apparent now, possibly because of it's ambiguity or thought to be too frightening to attract the public, Henri's poster was never used.
Despite its negative review, Henri was excited and proud when he saw his first print of the Jane Avril poster that he enthusiastically dedicated it to Stern, in the emotion of a first beginning.
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 | Sold | 1 |
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| Six Month Average | $3,000.00 |
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| Average Price | $3,000.00 |
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| Collections | 1 |
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