Yvette Guilbert (c. 1894): Art, History and Details

Yvette Guilbert (c. 1894) 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:

This drawing depicts Yvette Guilbert, a popular Parisian cabaret performer who was the subject of numerous prints, posters, drawings, and paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Here, Lautrec began to work out the composition of a poster that Guilbert commissioned from him to publicize her upcoming season at Les Ambassadeurs, a popular night club. A more finished study is part of the collection of the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi, France, but the poster itself was never realized after Guilbert rejected the design as unflattering.

Object facts

• Title: Yvette Guilbert
• Date: c. 1894
• Creator attribution: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black crayon
• Dimensions: Framed: 135.2 x 73 cm (53 1/4 x 28 3/4 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1950.455

A detail from the museum

Yvette Guilbert's cabaret act was centered on the distinctive long black gloves that she wore during performances.

Collection credit

Gift of Leonard C. Hanna Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, April - June 1953." Art Quarterly 16, no. 4 (Winter 1953): 346-365.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Milliken, William. In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.

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.