Elles: The Seated Clown, Mlle Cha-u-Ka-o
1896
- Medium
- color lithograph
- Dimensions
- 52.6 × 40.3 cm
- Status
- In Museum Collection
- Collect24 Art ID
- C24-194330
The French publisher Gustave Pellet, hoping to attract new customers, persuaded Lautrec to make a series of ten prints, plus frontispiece and cover, depicting brothels. Although it was not unusual to see prostitutes pictured in the popular press, Lautrec was the first well-known, successful artist to tackle this subject. The set was a commercial failure when it first appeared, perhaps because the scenes are not erotic. Lautrec had said that "they are women to my liking", and between 1892 and 1895 he often lived in various Parisian brothels for weeks at a time. This allowed him to witness the …
Provenance
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Ralph King, 1925.1204.2
Registry history
- 1896 — Recorded in the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art — prints
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