Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Portrait of a Woman: Jane Avril1893

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
France, also active Austria, 1864-1901
Title: Portrait of a Woman: Jane Avril
Date Made: 1893
Medium: Oil on board
Dimensions: 22 × 14 in. (55.88 × 35.56 cm) Framed: 27 1/2 × 19 1/4 × 2 in. (69.85 × 48.9 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.5
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Rejected by the annual Salon, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec forged connections with the avant-garde that would provide the avenue to success. By the end of the 1880s, his unique blend of realism, caricaturish simplification, and biting wit placed him at the forefront of Parisian artistic circles. It was during this time that he focused his pencil and brush on Montmartre, a seedy working-class neighborhood rife with talk of revolution and percolating with creative energy. Entertainers, artists, prostitutes, and hustlers—all figures on the margin of polite, traditional society—supplied the content for his paintings and lithographs.

For Lautrec, the can-can dancer Jane Avril embodied the brash, raucous ambience of Montmartre, and her extraordinary popularity was due in part to his collaboration in the manufacture of her persona. In his lithographs announcing her performances (59.80.15), which were plastered all over Paris, he used radical silhouettes and dramatic viewpoints. Yet he was also a deeply sensitive portraitist, and his oil sketches of Avril are perceptive, empathic glimpses into her private identity. In the present portrait, Lautrec dispensed with the stage set, lights, and trademark colored petticoats seen in the lithographs. Rather, here Avril is defined by a web of exaggerated brushstrokes with only a few of her graceful features fully realized. And yet there remains a hint of her public persona in the thick white pigment on her face suggestive of stage makeup.

2024
Provenance: Possibly Thadée Natanson (1868–1951), Paris, c. 1902.(1) Serobe Sévadjian (c. 1869–1932) (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 22 March 1920, lot 22, to);(2) Walter Gay (1856–1937), Paris.(3) Marquis di Biron, 20th c., to;(4) L. Besnard.4 Private Collection, Paris, c. 1980. Anonymous (sale, Paris, Ader Picard Tajan, 9 April 1987, lot 85). Anonymous (sale, New York, Christie’s, 11 May 1988, lot 18, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Natanson was a great supporter and collector of Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vuillard. With brothers Alexandre and Alfred, Thadée Natanson ran the French arts journal La Revue blanche.
(2) The 22 March 1920 Drouot sale catalogue lists “S… S…” as the owner, however newspapers at the time listed the owner’s name as “M. Sevadjian” when publishing the sale results.
(3) Walter Gay was an American painter and collector who lived in Paris, best known for his painted interiors that celebrate French furniture and interior design.
(4) According to an inscription on the back of the board: “Toulouse Lautrec / achete par moi au / Marquis di Biron / L. Besnard.” This likely refers to Guillaume de Gontaut, Marquis de Biron (1859–1939), and possibly the author, critic, and collector Lucien Besnard (1872–1955). The Marquis de Biron was a lender of another image of Jane Avril to the 1902 Exposition H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, no. 111.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.
Copyright: photo © Fredrik Nilsen

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Portrait of a Woman: Jane Avril1893

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
France, also active Austria, 1864-1901
Title: Portrait of a Woman: Jane Avril
Date Made: 1893
Medium: Oil on board
Dimensions: 22 × 14 in. (55.88 × 35.56 cm) Framed: 27 1/2 × 19 1/4 × 2 in. (69.85 × 48.9 × 5.08 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of A. Jerrold Perenchio
Accession Number: M.2025.64.5
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Curatorial Notes: Rejected by the annual Salon, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec forged connections with the avant-garde that would provide the avenue to success. By the end of the 1880s, his unique blend of realism, caricaturish simplification, and biting wit placed him at the forefront of Parisian artistic circles. It was during this time that he focused his pencil and brush on Montmartre, a seedy working-class neighborhood rife with talk of revolution and percolating with creative energy. Entertainers, artists, prostitutes, and hustlers—all figures on the margin of polite, traditional society—supplied the content for his paintings and lithographs.

For Lautrec, the can-can dancer Jane Avril embodied the brash, raucous ambience of Montmartre, and her extraordinary popularity was due in part to his collaboration in the manufacture of her persona. In his lithographs announcing her performances (59.80.15), which were plastered all over Paris, he used radical silhouettes and dramatic viewpoints. Yet he was also a deeply sensitive portraitist, and his oil sketches of Avril are perceptive, empathic glimpses into her private identity. In the present portrait, Lautrec dispensed with the stage set, lights, and trademark colored petticoats seen in the lithographs. Rather, here Avril is defined by a web of exaggerated brushstrokes with only a few of her graceful features fully realized. And yet there remains a hint of her public persona in the thick white pigment on her face suggestive of stage makeup.

2024
Provenance: Possibly Thadée Natanson (1868–1951), Paris, c. 1902.(1) Serobe Sévadjian (c. 1869–1932) (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 22 March 1920, lot 22, to);(2) Walter Gay (1856–1937), Paris.(3) Marquis di Biron, 20th c., to;(4) L. Besnard.4 Private Collection, Paris, c. 1980. Anonymous (sale, Paris, Ader Picard Tajan, 9 April 1987, lot 85). Anonymous (sale, New York, Christie’s, 11 May 1988, lot 18, to); A. J. Perenchio (1930–2017), Los Angeles, gifted 2025 to; Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Footnotes
(1) Natanson was a great supporter and collector of Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vuillard. With brothers Alexandre and Alfred, Thadée Natanson ran the French arts journal La Revue blanche.
(2) The 22 March 1920 Drouot sale catalogue lists “S… S…” as the owner, however newspapers at the time listed the owner’s name as “M. Sevadjian” when publishing the sale results.
(3) Walter Gay was an American painter and collector who lived in Paris, best known for his painted interiors that celebrate French furniture and interior design.
(4) According to an inscription on the back of the board: “Toulouse Lautrec / achete par moi au / Marquis di Biron / L. Besnard.” This likely refers to Guillaume de Gontaut, Marquis de Biron (1859–1939), and possibly the author, critic, and collector Lucien Besnard (1872–1955). The Marquis de Biron was a lender of another image of Jane Avril to the 1902 Exposition H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, no. 111.
Selected Bibliography: Lehmbeck, Leah, ed. Impressionist and Modern Art: The A. Jerrold Perenchio Collection. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Munich: DelMonico Books/Prestel, 2016.