Woman at the Mirror (Femme à glace)

Woman at the Mirror (Femme à glace) is a lithograph created in 1896 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; Auguste Clot. This delicate print, rendered through the collaborative efforts of the artist and the master printer Clot, utilizes a restrained palette of gray, yellow, and beige inks. Produced during the height of the French fin-de-siècle art scene, the piece exemplifies the technical sophistication achieved in color printing during the period spanning 1876 to 1900.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s distinctive graphic style, characterized by economic line work and a focus on intimate, unidealized portrayals, translates powerfully to the lithograph medium. The print captures a private moment: a solitary woman seated before a mirror, her head slightly bowed. This subject matter reflects the artist’s enduring interest in documenting the domestic and psychological life of women in Parisian society, often presenting them without conventional sentimentality. The limited colors and flattened planes enhance the introspective mood of the scene, emphasizing contours over detailed realism, a technique that anticipates later modern art movements.

The collaboration between Toulouse-Lautrec and Clot was crucial to the success of this work, with Clot providing the technical mastery necessary to register the subtle, translucent layers of color. As a result, the work maintains an ephemeral quality often absent in earlier prints.

This lithograph stands as a central contribution to modern French prints, demonstrating how artists utilized printmaking to create complex, painterly results that circulated widely. Today, Woman at the Mirror (Femme à glace) is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, where it serves as a key reference for understanding the artistic innovations of Toulouse-Lautrec and the technical achievements of the late nineteenth-century printing establishment.