Prints, Drawings, and Photographs

Seated Clown (Mademoiselle Cha-u-kao)
From the album Elles (Those Women). Published by Gustave Pellet (Paris, 1896)

c. 1896

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French, 1864 - 1901. Published by Gustave Pellet, French, 1859 - 1919.

Color lithograph
Image: 20 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches (52.1 x 40 cm)

Currently not on view

1950-129-3

Label

In 1896 Lautrec completed the most striking of all the limited-edition print albums published during the 1890s, a suite of eleven color lithographs that he titled Elles (Those Women). The series portrays the daily routine in a fancy brothel, showing prostitutes in various stages of preparation for work: waking, having breakfast, filling a bath, primping, and even entertaining a client.

This is the only print in Lautrec's Elles album without a brothel setting. Portrayed here is Mademoiselle Cha-u-kao, a performer who took her stage name from the Chahut-Chaos, a noisy, crowd-pleasing dance that was on the bill at the Moulin Rouge nightclub.