Léonie Yahne in her dressing room, in L’Age Difficile

Description

Léonie Yahne sits within her dressing room in Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s pale lithograph, with diagonal objects and curtains contributing to the surrounding space. The named actress is encountered beside the apparatus of theatrical life rather than in a distant stage view. Her seated presence gives the room a human center, making an interval around performance an engaging subject in its own right.

Made in 1895, the lithograph uses crayon, spatter and scraper and is printed in olive green on wove paper. Toulouse-Lautrec approaches entertainment through an interval less public than the performance itself. The dressing room becomes a place where a performer can be encountered as a person within a particular circumstance. The work’s interest lies in that change of attention, joining theatrical identity to the quieter human world through which an outward appearance is made ready.

Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec collection.