Carmen Gaudin in the Artist's Studio
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
(French, 1864–1901)
1888
Country of Origin, for CustomsFrance
Medium/TechniqueOil on canvas
Dimensions55.9 x 46.7 cm (22 x 18 3/8 in.)
Credit LineBequest of John T. Spaulding
Accession number48.605
On View
Not on viewClassificationsPaintings
Collections
Toulouse-Lautrec met red-haired Carmen Gaudin in the Montmartre district of Paris in 1884, and she soon became his favorite model. Here, Gaudin wears the white blouse of a laundress and sits before a studio wall covered with angular canvases. Work-roughened fingers laced in her lap, she stares out at the viewer with a withdrawn, even sullen, expression. The life of a professional model was difficult and fraught with social stigma, her employment dependent on whether her look fit an artist’s vision. When Gaudin changed her locks from red to brown, Toulouse-Lautrec no longer hired her.
InscriptionsLower right: HTLautrec (H, T and L in monogram)ProvenanceH.-J. Laroche, Paris. Karjensky [see note 1]. By 1925, Paul Rosenberg and Co., New York; January 9, 1926, sold by Rosenberg to John Taylor Spaulding (b. 1870 - d. 1948), Boston; 1948, bequest of John Taylor Spaulding to the MFA. (Accession Date: June 3, 1948)NOTES:
[1] The early provenance was provided by Rosenberg at the time of the painting's sale to Spaulding.
Henri Fantin-Latour
Henri Eugène Augustin Le Sidaner
Henri Fantin-Latour
