HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC | Femme de maison

Baumgarten Collection, Paris
Maurice Joyant, Paris
M.G. Dortu, Le Vésinet (acquired from the above circa 1930 and until at least 1959) 
Private Collection, Geneva 
Acquired from the above on January 13, 2006

Paris, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Exposition retrospective de l'oeuvre de H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901, 1914, no. 77, illustrated in the catalogue
Paris, Musée des arts décoratifs, Exposition H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, au profit de la Societé des Amis du Musée d'Albi, 1931, no. 111
London, M. Knoedler & Co., Toulouse-Lautrec, Paintings and Drawings, France, 1938, no. 25
Paris, Galerie M. Knoedler & Cie., Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901, 1938, no. 24
Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1947, no. 35 (titled Vrouwenkop)
Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901, 1947, no. 35 (titled Tête de femme)
Albi, Musée de la Berbie, Toulouse-Lautrec, ses amis et ses maîtres, commémoration par le Musée d'Albi du cinquantième anniversaire de la mort du peintre, 1951, no. 142 
Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Chefs-d'oeuvre de Toulouse-Lautrec appartenant au Musée d'Albi et à des collections françaises, 1959, no. 141

Arsène Alexandre, "Exposition rétrospective de l'oeuvre de H. de Toulouse-Lautrec," in Les Arts, no. 152, Paris, August 1914, illustrated p. 13
Maurice Joyant, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Peintre, Paris, 1926, p. 285
Pierre Cabanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, lecture pour tous, 1959, illustrated p. 22
Raymond Charmet, Arts, March 11, 1959, mentioned p. 16 
Giorgio Caproni & G.M. Sugana, L'Opera completa di Toulouse-Lautrec, Milan, 1969, no. 378a, listed p. 111 (titled Ospite di una "casa")
M.G. Dortu, Toulouse-Lautrec et son oeuvre, vol. III, New York, 1971, no. P.540, illustrated p. 333

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Painted in 1894, Femme de maison belongs to a period of intensive study for Lautrec, who found his greatest subjects in the demi-monde of performers and prostitutes. The last years of the artist’s life were spent frequenting the maisons closes of Paris, often residing for weeks at a time in the established brothels of the Rue des Moulins, Rue Joubert and Rue d’Ambroise. Despite his aristocratic lineage and privileged upbringing in the south of France, Lautrec found himself drawn to the fringes of popular society after moving to the capital city, and quickly assimilated into the bohemian circles of artists, writers and their muses. Perhaps due to his own physical limitations—traits inherited from the intermarriage of his pedigreed family—Lautrec found solace and understanding in the company of such marginalized characters, and in turn observed his friends and subjects with a keen eye and lack of judgement.

Lautrec’s sketches and paintings from this time reveal naturalistic and unidealized accounts of working women who are frequently depicted in between engagements, casually leaning on couches, adjusting their clothing, or talking among themselves. These accounts of Parisian brothels and their employees do not aim to tantalize; rather these calm and quotidian scenes lend a sense of normalcy to the women’s profession and reflect a candor which Lautrec found lacking in typical artists’ models (see fig. 1). An anonymous portrait, the present work depicts one such femme de maison in a poised and quiet setting. The profile view, often used by Lautrec in his sketches and preliminary studies, here is employed in the service of a fully rendered painting, in effect elevating the standing of his subject by the more formal means of portraiture.

First recorded in the Baumgarten collection, Femme de maison later belonged to Maurice Joyant, a close personal friend of the artist and major proponent of his work. After Lautrec’s untimely death in 1901, Joyant directed the artist’s estate and helped establish the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in his hometown of Albi.