Description
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced this drawing to illustrate an article about Parisian summers. It presents the type of poorly paid worker who remained in the city while others traveled to escape the urban heat. Because the image was to be reproduced in black and white, Toulouse-Lautrec thinned and brushed ink, scraping into it to expose fine white highlights. Like several artworks in Cleveland’s collection, the drawing was formerly owned by Roger Marx, a French collector, curator, and art critic who built perhaps the most substantial holdings of Toulouse-Lautrec’s work around the turn of the century.
Provenance
Roger Marx [1859–1913], Paris (?-1914); (his sale, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris, May 11–12, 1914, no. 222, sold to Simon Oppenheimer) (1914); (Simon Oppenheimer, Germany, sold to Otto Gerstenberg, Berlin) (After 1914); Otto Gerstenberg [1848–1935], Berlin, by descent to Margarethe Scharf, Berlin (1914-1935); Margarethe Scharf [1889–1961], Berlin (1935-1936); Deposited in Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (1936-1950); (Jean-Pierre Durand-Matthiesen, Geneva) (1951-1952); (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (1952); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1952-)
Accession Number
1952.113
Medium
black and gray wash with white paint, scratched away in places, on gray cardboard prepared with white ground
Dimensions
Sheet: 75.9 x 63.1 cm (29 7/8 x 24 13/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
Gift of the Hanna Fund