Yvette Guilbert: à Ménilmontant, de Bruant (1898)
Technique: Giclée quality print
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's 1898 sketch titled "Yvette Guilbert: à Ménilmontant, de Bruant" captures the essence of the famed French cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert in a deeply expressive and somewhat unconventional manner typical of Lautrec. A master at immortalizing the vibrant nightlife of fin-de-siècle Paris, Lautrec here employs a minimalist, sketchy approach that remarkably conveys depth and emotion.This drawing is rendered in soft lead pencil on paper, which gives the piece a delicate and ephemeral quality. Guilbert is depicted in profile with her features exaggerated and her head thrown back dramatically—perhaps caught in mid-song. Her expression is one of intense emotion, which might suggest she is delivering a particularly emotive or powerful song, resonant of her performances known to evoke the bohemian spirit of Paris at the time.The sparse lines and the raw sketchiness of the drawing leave much to the interpretation, inviting viewers to imagine the sounds and the atmosphere surrounding Guilbert during her performance. Lautrec’s style effectively strips away the glamour and exposes the sincere and raw character of his subject, a technique that offers a more intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the life of a performer.
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Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times.