Jeanne, prends sans qu’on te voie . . . , from Le Rire, No. 129, 24 April 1897

Description

In Jeanne, prends sans qu’on te voie, a woman sits at a long counter in this printed image after Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, with wine bottles in front and another figure at the left. Her olive-green clothing gives the small scene a distinct colored presence. The title addresses Jeanne through words suggesting an action away from another’s notice, leaving the encounter’s wider story open.

Published in Le Rire on April 24, 1897, the image belongs to the circulation of a design after Toulouse-Lautrec rather than a directly attributed original lithograph by him. The journal setting gives the encounter another public life, making an image and its brief verbal frame available to a wider audience. Its interest lies in that conjunction, where words suggest an intention and the represented figures can give it a particular human character without a complete story being supplied.

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