Collapsed on the Bed
Medium
Lithograph printed in two colors on wove paper
Dimensions
15-3/4 x 20-7/16 in. (40.0 x 51.9 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Bequest of Scofield Thayer, 1982
Accession Number
1984.1203.166(12)
Tags
Art Historical Context
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's *Collapsed on the Bed* (1896) captures an intimate, candid moment from the shadowy underbelly of Belle Époque Paris. A master of Post-Impressionism, Lautrec was renowned for his unflinching portrayals of Montmartre's nightlife, including cabarets, dancers, and the women of local brothels. This lithograph likely belongs to his iconic *Elles* series, which humanizes prostitutes in private, unguarded settings—here, a weary woman sprawls exhausted on rumpled sheets, evoking both vulnerability and everyday realism amid the era's social fringes. Printed in two colors on ...
About the Artist
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 1864–1901
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa (1864-1901) was a French Post-Impressionist painter, printmaker, and illustrator whose innovative poster designs revolutionized graphic art and advertising in late 19th-century Paris. Born into an aristocratic family at Albi in southern France, Toulouse-Lautrec's privileged lineage traced back to the Counts of Toulouse and extended uninterrupted to th...