Étude de Femme [Study of A Woman] by Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de - 1893

Paris: Édouard Kleinmann, 1893. First Edition. fine. Toulouse-Lautrec. 1st printing, 1st issue, Wittrock 11, the rare state A, of 3 (A, B, and C). This state A precedes the edition of 100 and is geometrically more limited. A fine lithograph on laid Japan paper, with full margins (9 5/8" X 15 1/2"). Signed by the artist with his monogram in black pencil, and it is anomalous to find his lithographs of this type signed by hand, as what is usually seen are his initials applied in the plate or with a stamp. The ownership chain tells a fully comforting tale. Ex-Roger Marx, his tiny indicator in the corner, and his pencil note, in French, along the bottom edge. Ex-The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from their own collection, and sold to subsidize their Acquisitions Fund, an impeccable provenance for the certainty of the lithograph, but even more importantly, for the certainty of the pencil signature. Framed. There is a painting, on cardboard, of the same young woman, in the same pose, at The Musee Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi, but it isn't a great painting, inasmuch as it has none of the background, and she isn't drawn as pretty. Toulouse-Lautrec was 4 feet 8 inches tall, with a normal size body on child size legs, but he was a superstar post-impressionist painter, the first artist to hang in the Louvre while he was alive, and he lived in the Montmartre, and chilled at Le Moulin Rouge (The Red Mill), where a table was always reserved for him, so he ate well, drank fine cognac, and got laid a lot, by dazzling babes, who really liked him.art.