The Laundress
1888
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
Drawings
The Laundress, 1888. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901). Black and gray wash with white paint, scratched away in places, on gray cardboard prepared with white ground; sheet: 75.9 x 63.1 cm (29 7/8 x 24 13/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of the Hanna Fund 1952.113 A prolific illustrator, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made this drawing as an illustration for an article about "Summer in Paris" published in Paris illustré, a magazine popular among the middle classes. Although the article singled out the laundress as a charming object of the male gaze on the city streets, the stooping posture and dark-circled eyes of the figure seen here give her a worn, tired appearance that invites comparison with the workhorse behind her. The drawing's sharp receding perspective emphasizes the act of street-level spectatorship and a man's top hat visible in the coach behind the woman alludes to her subservient social and sexual role. To create this drawing, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted a board white and then both scraped the material away in areas and drew with black ink to create a variety of tones throughout the image.
- Maker/Artist
- Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de
- Classification
- Drawing
- Formatted Medium
- black and gray wash with white paint, scratched away in places, on gray cardboard prepared with white ground
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 75.9 x 63.1 cm (29 7/8 x 24 13/16 in.)
- Inscribed
- Inscription: signed, lower right, in brush and ink and black crayon: T-Lautrec; inscribed, on verso, upper center, in graphite: M
- Departments
- Drawings
- Accession Number
- 1952.113
- Credit Line
- Gift of the Hanna Fund
- Exhibitions
- Toulouse-Lautrec: Exhibition Organized in Collaboration with the Albi Museum, Toulouse-Lautrec: Paintings, Drawings, Posters and Lithographs, Art: The International Language, Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition, French Drawings of the 1800's, A Generation of Draughtsmen, Drawings, Toulouse-Lautrec, 19th and 20th Century Drawings, French Drawings, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings, Vincent van Gogh and the Birth of Cloisonism, Northern European Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, Mary Cassatt and the Feminine Ideal in Nineteenth-Century Paris, Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art, <em>Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864–1901</em>. Österreichisches Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna (June–July 1966).
- Rights Statement
- CC0
- Museum Location
- 101A Prints & Drawings
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