Elles: Woman In a Corset (1896): Art, History and Details

Elles: Woman In a Corset (1896) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Like Cassatt, Toulouse-Lautrec also made a series of color prints depicting the daily lives of women, but instead of portraying bourgeois wives and mothers, his subjects were prostitutes. His series of twelve lithographs entitled Elles boldly confronted the reality of late 19th-century Parisian brothels on the rue de Moulins and the rue de Richelieu, in which rich men's pursuit of pleasure with the daughters of the poor was legal and accepted. Although not portraits of classic beauty, his depictions of Parisian prostitutes embrace the poignancy of human experience. Here, a prostitute unhooks her corset in the presence of a client, her face sympathetically averted from the viewer's gaze.

Object facts

• Title: Elles: Woman In a Corset
• Date: 1896
• Creator attribution: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: color lithograph
• Collection: PR - Lithograph
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1925.1204.10

A detail from the museum

This print belongs to a portfolio published by the dealer Gustave Pellet, who created a special luxury paper that featured a watermark of his initials.

Collection credit

Gift of Ralph King

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.