Cover for the first album of L'Estampe originale (1893): Artwork and History

Cover for the first album of L'Estampe originale (1893) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901) printed by Imprimerie Edward Ancourt published by L'Estampe originale (French, 1893-1895).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

New developments in printing techniques resulted in an explosion of color lithography in the 1890s, and lithogra- phers like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec regularly collaborated with professional printing workshops to improve consistency and efficiency in their production. Color lithography was used both for posters and for smaller prints or portfolios that could be purchased by a growing market of middle-class private collectors. Toulouse-Lautrec designed this cover for the first issue of L’Estampe originale, a quarterly portfolio that included prints by the era’s leading artists. The cover depicts the fashionable Jane Avril examining a print at the Ancourt printing workshop, where the older Père Cotelle, Toulouse-Lautrec’s trusted printer, operates the press.

Object facts

• Title: Cover for the first album of L'Estampe originale
• Date: 1893
• Artist attribution: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901) printed by Imprimerie Edward Ancourt published by L'Estampe originale (French, 1893-1895)
• Place of origin: France
• Medium: Color lithograph on ivory wove paper
• Dimensions: Image: 56.6 × 65 cm (22 5/16 × 25 5/8 in.); Sheet: 58.5 × 83.5 cm (23 1/16 × 32 7/8 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1932.1326

Collection credit

The Charles F. Glore Collection

View the original

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.