?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000
HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC (1864-1901) DIVAN JAPONAIS. 1893. 32x241/2 inches. Edw. Ancourt, Paris. Condition A-: minor overpainting and restoration in lower right corner; repaired tears through top margin. The Divan Japonais was a small café concert at 75 rue des Martyrs, where, under the direction of Edouard Fourrier, Yvette Guilbert began her career. In all senses of the word the Divan Japonais is a seminal poster. This and Lautrec's image of Aristide Bruant outside his cabaret are the artist's best known posters. It is his only poster that shows both Jane Avril and Yvette Guilbert, the two Montmartre demimondes who were his friends (and major inspirations.) Jane Avril was the star dancer at the Moulin Rogue. She is pictured here seated next to the literary critic, Edouard Dujardin. On stage in the background, Guilbert is depicted from the neck down, recognizable only by her trademark long black gloves. The composition is built along the diagonal of the stage and the orchestra, in the style of Japanese wood block prints that were so fashionable in Paris at the end of the 19th century. Lautrec impishly punctures the diagonal with the priapic scrolls of the instruments. Maitres pl. 2, Weill p. 47 no. 37, Maitres 1900 p. 49, Wine Spectator p. 49, Delteil 341.
