Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Babylone d'Allemagne
Lithograph Edition of 2000

36.5 X 24.75

French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) vividly depicted the revelry of 19th century Parisian nightlife in paintings and posters. After injuring both legs in his early teens, Toulouse-Lautrec immersed himself in art while he recovered. He later entered the bohemian world of Paris’ Montmartre, painting its colorful cross-section of inhabitants, circuses, dance halls, nightclubs and racetracks.  This lithograph reproduction of the poster entitled Babylone d'Allemagne is a limited edition of 2000.  The subject is a book exposing the decadence of Berlin society, written by Lautrec's friend Victor Joze. The poster focuses the spectator's attention on the hindquarters of four horses, the largest of which is also being closely observed by a caricature of the Kaiser standing in a guardbox. The implications of this, along with the book's title, provoked a protest from the German ambassador to France and nearly caused an international incident. Joze, too, wrote Lautrec asking for him to withdraw the poster, as he felt the depiction of a German officer, together with the anti-German tone of the book, would not be tolerated by the police and could get him in trouble. Lautrec, however, refused to stop distribution of the poster, and as he had paid for it himself, the publisher was not able to stop the distribution. Thereafter, according to art dealer Edmond Sagot, the value of Lautrec's work quadrupled.