Woman with Hand Mirror (Femme à glace, la glace à main) from Elles is a seminal lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, created in 1896. This work is one of twelve prints that comprise the highly influential portfolio Elles, a series dedicated to depicting the intimate, unromanticized lives of women within Parisian brothels, or maisons closes. The artist, who was deeply connected to the fin-de-siècle bohemian culture of Montmartre, spent significant time in these establishments, allowing him to capture his subjects with a rare level of candor and ethnographic detail, rejecting the moralistic judgments common in contemporary French art.
The subject is captured in an intensely private moment of grooming and self-reflection, holding a small, round hand mirror. Unlike many contemporary depictions that emphasized the women’s public roles or theatrical performance, this print focuses on quiet introspection and the mundane reality of their existence. The composition is tightly cropped, directing the viewer’s attention entirely to the figure and the subtle psychological drama of the scene.
As a master of the print medium, Toulouse-Lautrec utilized the immediacy of lithography to achieve soft, diffused shading and rapid, sketch-like delineation. The technical execution emphasizes the artist’s graphic sensibility, prioritizing line and atmosphere over traditional modeling, making the final prints appear fresh and spontaneous. The work exemplifies the highly sought-after aesthetic of graphic design and poster art that characterized late 19th-century Paris.
The Elles portfolio is considered a pivotal document of French social history and a high point of Toulouse-Lautrec’s printmaking career. The collection, published by Gustave Pellet in 1896, secured the artist’s reputation as the era’s foremost visual chronicler. This important print, which demonstrates the artist's empathetic approach to marginalized figures, is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
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