Georges Clemenceau and the Optomotrist, Mayer, from Au Pied du Sinaï
1897, published 1898
Medium
Lithograph on grayish-ivory wove chine
Dimensions
Image: 17.5 × 14.5 cm (6 15/16 × 5 3/4 in.); Sheet: 33.7 × 23.5 cm (13 5/16 × 9 5/16 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
134564
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
This lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, created in 1897 and published in 1898, depicts Georges Clemenceau, the prominent French statesman, alongside an optometrist named Mayer. Part of the illustrations for *Au Pied du Sinaï*, it reveals Lautrec’s gift for capturing distinctive personalities through economical, character-rich drawing. A leading Post-Impressionist, Lautrec excelled at lithography, a printmaking process that transferred his crayon drawings from stone to paper with striking tonal range and fluid line. Printed on grayish-ivory wove chine, the modest image (17.5 × 14.5 cm) g...
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...