Portrait of the Singer Yvette Guilbert on Stage, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894

Portrait of the Singer Yvette Guilbert on Stage, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894

paper, h 340mm × w 160mm More details

This print was included in an album devoted to Yvette Guilbert. She specialized in melancholy chansons sung in a shrill or piercing tone. Lautrec here made a penetrating and slightly macabre portrait of the cabaret singer with her pale painted face. Some felt that Guilbert, not known for her beauty, should have put a stop to such representations of herself. Her craving for publicity had blinded her.