Like Degas, whose work he admired enormously, Toulouse-Lautrec set himself the task of observing the daily life of Paris and attempted to capture the spirit and immediacy of everyday occurrences by working on-site as well as in his studio. Lautrec and Degas were very well-read and had extensive knowledge of paintings from previous centuries; both were exceptional draughtsmen and—like many of their contemporaries—had an almost Academic fascination with the human figure. Degas, however, was most comfortable in an elegant and detached world that allowed him to indulge a predilection for gracefulness, whereas Lautrec generally employed more diverse physical types and often rendered models in awkward or undignified moments. Lautrec's viewpoint was, nonetheless, generally sympathetic, and though he might occasionally mock what he saw, he clearly felt at home in the underworld of Parisian nightlife.

Degas and Lautrec both posed women nude or semi-nude—generally in very informal settings—to obtain compelling compositions. The present painting is one of several works executed by Toulouse-Lautrec in the 1890s that show a partly clad model viewed from behind. Degas also posed models in this way, although he usually represented them as bathing. Lautrec positioned his subject facing a row of small tables and chairs, implying a somewhat less private, and therefore possibly more suggestive, setting. By hiding her face and only partially showing the furniture, he permitted himself a relatively abstract composition and allowed the two-dimensional aspect of the design to assert itself. Lautrec deliberately eliminated any prominent receding lines that might carry the eye back into space, relying on differences in shape and color to achieve the same end, though less directly. The picture is rendered in tempera or casein, quick-drying opaque media that emphasize individual strokes rather than allowing careful modeling. A delight in revealing the means with which he rendered his subjects often led Lautrec to choose themes that contained obvious elements of artifice, such as the stage or aging women with exaggerated makeup. In the Museum's painting, however, this predilection takes second place to the artist's concern with form.

At upper right, signed HTLautrec [HTL in monogram]

Object Number:

84.PC.39 

Provenance:

by 1919 - J. & G. Bernheim-Jeune(Paris, France)

by 1931 - Gaston Bernheim de Villers1870 - 1953 (Paris, France)

by 1955 - Baron Charles-Emmanuel Janssendied 1985 (Brussels, Belgium)

- 1982 Private Collection [sold, Sotheby's, London, March 31, 1982, lot 63, to a private collector.]

1982 - Private Collection(United States)

- 1984 Acquavella Galleries, Inc.(New York, New York)

sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1984.