Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) - Lot 248

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) La Revue blanche. Poster. 1895. Lithograph. Sight: 925x1285mm. Delteil 355; Wittrock P16. Printed in full color. Very fine proof on thin buff vellum, in two pieces printed consecutively. Traces of oxidation in the corners (caused by mounting). A few tiny fractures at the edges. Tax stamp under right sleeve. Frame (not examined outside the frame). Provenance: Collection Lilette Berger, widow of Sam Szafran (1934-2019), Malakoff. La Revue Blancheis an avant-garde magazine founded in Liège in 1889 by the Natanson brothers, who later moved to Paris. "It became a forum for debate and promoted the Nabis painters, the Neo-Impressionists and Art Nouveau. Humor and festive spirit, freedom, commitment and creativity, pacifism, secularism and globalization are the values it defends. [...] Lautrec's most famous work for the magazine is not an illustration, but a poster: it depictsMisia, the wife of Thadée Natanson, muse and patron of many musicians and painters.the framing truncates the image and suggests movement; Misia is on a skating rink, and the shape of her flaring dress and the gesture of her left arm stretched backwards suggest that she is gliding. La Revue Blanche disappeared in 1903. It was the end of an incredible literary, artistic and political adventure to which the most anti-establishment intellectuals of the day had contributed." (www.grandpalais.fr). "The Natansons perhaps admired [Lautrec] more as a wit and entertainer than as an artist. Admittedly, they commissioned the poster for the Revue Blanche from him, but they didn't say whether they were satisfied with it, and the public criticized the poster for in no way indicating that it was a matter of subscribing to a publication." (Jean Adhémar, Toulouse-Lautrec, lithographies et pointes sèches, Paris, Arts et Métiers graphiques, 1965, p.VIII).