Luce Myrès, in Profile

"Luce Myrès, in Profile," created in 1895 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec French, 1864-1901, is a masterful example of late 19th-century color lithography. This print, executed on cream wove paper, showcases Lautrec's technical brilliance in capturing subtle tonal variations and expressive lines using the new reproductive printing medium. As a definitive output of French culture during the fin de siècle, the work highlights the artist's dedication to documenting the vibrant, often marginalized, figures of contemporary Parisian nightlife.

Toulouse-Lautrec, an astute observer of high society and the entertainment districts alike, captured his subjects with psychological acuity and immediacy. While widely celebrated for his monumental advertising posters, this intimate-scale print demonstrates his proficiency in portraiture. Luce Myrès, a figure from the world of performance or the demimonde, is depicted in severe profile. This compositional choice allowed Lautrec to focus intensely on her distinctive silhouette and the fashionable detail of her attire, reflecting the era’s emerging graphic sensibility. The meticulous registration of color and the use of bold outlines cemented Toulouse-Lautrec’s reputation as one of the period’s most significant innovators in the medium of prints.

The classification of this piece as a print underscores its role in the democratization of art imagery during the 1890s in France, making high-quality works accessible to a broader collecting base. This important piece of Parisian cultural history is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, serving as a key reference for studying the history of modern graphic arts and the evolving role of the artist as chronicler of urban life.