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Seated From the Viewer

OUR INSPIRATION: Madame Thadée Natanson (Misia Godebska) at the Theater
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
Oil on cardboard, 24 1/2 x 29 1/2 in., 1895
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers, 1964 64.153
Lautrec made this study for the cover of the final issue of L’Estampe Originale (1893–95), a quarterly album of original prints by young French artists. Fittingly, it shows stagehands bringing down the curtain on a performance. In the middle, a plaster elephant stands guard atop a cartouche for the table of contents. Seated at left is Misia Natanson, the glamorous patroness of poets Paul Verlaine and Stephane Mellarme, and of artists including Lautrec, Bonnard, and Vuillard. Now restored, this work was once sliced into two pieces and framed so as to reveal only Misia in her loge.

OUR INSPIRATION: Madame Thadée Natanson (Misia Godebska) at the Theater
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
Oil on cardboard, 24 1/2 x 29 1/2 in., 1895
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers, 1964 64.153
Lautrec made this study for the cover of the final issue of L’Estampe Originale (1893–95), a quarterly album of original prints by young French artists. Fittingly, it shows stagehands bringing down the curtain on a performance. In the middle, a plaster elephant stands guard atop a cartouche for the table of contents. Seated at left is Misia Natanson, the glamorous patroness of poets Paul Verlaine and Stephane Mellarme, and of artists including Lautrec, Bonnard, and Vuillard. Now restored, this work was once sliced into two pieces and framed so as to reveal only Misia in her loge.