Toulouse-Lautrec [antikvár]

The faces of a few women he loved or admired —Suzanne Valadon, Jane Avril, May Milton, Missia Natanson—somé models he had met briefly, the inmates of the brothels in the Rue des Moulins whom he had got to know so intimately during his long stays, and lastly, a few silhouettes snatched from the world of the theatre—these few sketches teli us more about Toulouse-Lautrec than any lengthy commentary. With his precise draughtsmanship and his gift for capturing movement, eternalising a sudden gesture and for seizing a fleeting expression in which the very soul of the figure reveals itself, Lautrec was able to capture the essence of life in its most ephemeral moments. First, let us look at his women friends. The portrait of Suzanne Valadon (plate i) which is now in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek at Copen-hagen, was painted in 1885 during Lautrec's short but stormy three-year liaison with his mo-del. In the portrait we find the ferocious aspect, tinged with a certain sadness, of a woman who had known every degree of wretchedness and despair before finding a protector in the person of Lautrec when she was only eighteen. Marié