Un Monsieur et une Dame. Programme pour L'Argent. A Gentleman and a Lady. Programme for the play 'L'Argent -Money'. by Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901

Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901
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Un Monsieur et une Dame. Programme pour L'Argent. A Gentleman and a Lady. Programme for the play 'L'Argent -Money'.

Original lithograph in colours. 1895. Signed with the monogram in the stone - there was no pencil signed edition. From the only edition issued with the lettering for the Théatre Libre, 1895. (Only one impression before lettering is known and that is incomplete and without colours). Drawn
and printed at the studio of Verneau, Paris 1895.
Ref: Wittrock-Lautrec Prints no 97. Adriani - Lautrec no 133

Very fine impression with extremely fine strong colours on smooth pale cream wove paper. Traces of one horizontal fold now flattened but not obtrusive. Print suface excellent; reverse with japan paper backing to the fold and one paper thin spot (not visible from the front). Printed to the full
sheet size, as issued. Sheet: 12 1/12 x 9 3/8ins. (318x238mm).

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?Un Monsieur et une Dame? is one of the three outstanding compositions which Lautrec drew in 1895 in lithography for his friend André Antoine, the owner of the avant-garde Théatre Libre. They were to be issued as de-luxe programmes for performances of the plays. Printed as a single sheet image, but with the addition of a small amount of overprinted text with the name of the play and the cast list, they were sold in the same manner as a modern ?gala programme?. As such they were extremely ephemeral, however, the majority of examples being either severely damaged by multiple folding (to fit in a pocket or bag for example) or merely lost when later thrown away as being of little long-term interest. This example has been unusually well preserved; it had only one soft horizontal fold (which has now been pressed flat and is now only visible in a ?cross light?), but above all the colours are exceptionally fresh and unfaded as it must have been stored in a drawer or portfolio. Despite the fact the original edition must have been quite large (probably several hundred) the number of impressions to survive in fine condition is very small; impressions of the colour quality of this example are notably rare.

Lautrec, like his friends in the Nabis circle such as Vuillard and Bonnard (q.v.), was very much influenced by the ideas of Japanese art and specially of Japanese ukiyo-e colour woodcut prints, which had been increasingly exhibited in Paris since the Exposition Universelle. The compositional ideas in these prints had been avidly discussed at the many soirées held at the apartment of the Thadé and Misia Natanson, the owners of the Revue Blanche. The effect of these concepts on Toulouse Lautrec can be very strongly felt in ?Un Monsieur et une Dame?. The stylised shapes with the emphasis on contour only and devoid of interior detail whose visual effect is through the rhythm and interaction of the outlines, the contrasts of the bold flat areas of colour and the interspersed chalk and spatter shading, the strong diagonal of the composition with the daring contrasts of scale between the figures of the woman and the man beyond, and the way in which the forms are cut-off by the format of the picture area so that they seem to be pushing through into the space outside (for instance in the way the woman?s hair breaks through the edge of the image) - all these show the manner in which Lautrec brilliantly adapted and reinvented ideas drawn from Japanese art.

The figures in this composition are the actress Marie Henriot and her colleague Arguillière in the play ?L?Argent -Money? by Emile Fabre which opened at the Théatre Libre in May 1895.

Unlike ?La Coiffure? and ?La Loge au Mascaron Doré? which Lautrec had drawn as colour lithograph programme sheets for André Antoine in 1893 and 1894, ?Un Monsieur et une Dame? was never issued in an edition before the lettering. Only one impression is known (Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris) which is prior to the letters and this is in fact an incomplete trial state and without any colour.