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Full size sold for $ 120,000 US Swann Auction Galleries, N.Y. Dec. 2007

"For his friend and great Montmartre chansonnier, Aristide Bruant, Lautrec made several posters. Bruant was a strong, forceful, in many ways vulgar entertainer of intimate cabarets, the kind of places where fashionable society went 'slumming' for thrills. Lautrec catches the brutal quality and the disdain with which he treated his audiences. This design is one of the most imposing poster images of all time. The singer dominates the poster with as much authority as he commanded on stage, the red scarf forming an exclamation point. The thrust and power are achieved by fine draftsmanship, excellent colours, and bold composition" (Rennert PAI-XXI 433,436)

Aristide Bruant (French, 1851-1925)
A popular singer, poet, and composer. A burly, swaggering man, he always wore his wide-brimmed hat, red scarf, bulky cape, and tall boots when singing in a harsh voice of the violence and poverty in a Paris most of his audience never saw. He insulted and mocked the smart clientele drawn to his café-concerts at Les Ambassadeurs, the Eldorado and, in 1885, his own cabaret Le Mirliton. This poster, commissioned by Bruant, is one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s most dramatic... Toulouse-Lautrec condensed the personality into three bold shapes symbolic of Bruant himself—black cape, red scarf, and black hat. (www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org)

The Ambassadeurs cafe-concert on the Champs-Elysees was so named for its proximity to the Hotel Crillon, which used to house foreign ambassadors. In its belle epoque heyday, the cafe presented music hall stars from Yvette Guilbert to Aristide Bruant" (Rennert)

This version is from "Das Moderne Plakat " the German publication included 52 colour plates by the great poster artist's of the day. Printed by Verlag von Gerhard Kuhtmann, Dresden, 1897.