Full size (printed 1893) sold for $ 75,500 US Sotheby's, N.Y. Lot 32, March 2001.
"Of all the female entertainers Lautrec celebrated in his posters, Jane
Avril and Yvette Guilbert were the two with whom he maintained the longest friendship.
He portrayed them both together in one of his most brillant posters, Divan Japonais
Although Guilbert was the performer at this rather shabby cabaret when it opened
in the spring of (1893), Lautrec made the half-Italian Avril the local figure
in his composition. Under a shock of red-orange hair topped with a pagoda-shaped
hat and towering plume, her black, silhouetted figure dominates the frontal plane
as she nor her companion, Edouard Dujardin, the distinguished founder of the Symbolist
Revue Wagnerienne, deign to look at Guilbert on stage, whom Lautrec portrayed
as 'headless', probably as a witty response to her complaint that he caricatured
her and made her ugly"(Wagner, p.21) During
the 1960s the renowned French printer, Mourlot Freres, printed this superb series
"Les Affiches de Toulouse-Lautrec" for collectors. They are reduced
lithographic versions of Lautrec's most famous works. They are truly the most
beautiful printing we have been able to find in this size format. As vintage
printings of Lautrec's work, in all formats, reach high prices, this mid-century
printing offers a superb alternative at a reasonable price that will only appreciate
in value. |