c. 1896
Seated Clown (Mademoiselle Cha-u-kao)
Henri de Toulouse-LautrecFrench, 1864 - 1901
In 1896 Lautrec completed the most striking of all the limited-edition print albums published during the 1890s, a suite of eleven color lithographs that he titled Elles (Those Women). The series portrays the daily routine in a fancy brothel, showing prostitutes in various stages of preparation for work: waking, having breakfast, filling a bath, primping, and even entertaining a client.
This is the only print in Lautrec's Elles album without a brothel setting. Portrayed here is Mademoiselle Cha-u-kao, a performer who took her stage name from the Chahut-Chaos, a noisy, crowd-pleasing dance that was on the bill at the Moulin Rouge nightclub.
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