NARRATOR:
The performer sits sidesaddle, preparing to execute a spectacular stunt—to stand on a horse as it gallops around the ring, and dive through a paper hoop. We feel the excitement and anticipation as she speeds around the arena, her face isolated against the sweeping background. In the stands, a single top-hatted observer looks on, emerging almost grotesquely from a sea of blurred, vibrating motion.
The rider's daring act was a central attraction of the circus Fernando in Paris, often featured on posters and handbills. Here, it is recorded by the artist and caricaturist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It was one of his first attempts to incorporate new, modern subjects into a composition that he intended not as an illustration or sketch, but as an independent work of art.
An enthusiastic observer of contemporary culture, Lautrec found the momentous in the commonplace, fusing the colorful performances and noisy atmosphere of the circus into a single animated gesture. A student of Degas and a superb draftsman, he quickly mastered the pastel process, working in a spontaneous, rapid style. Here, he emphasizes the sweeping movement of the rider with soft focus and startling colors—notice his use of lavender, and the myriad different colors on the horse.
The picture is inscribed in the upper right "a mon ami Brua,” to my friend Brua. Aristide Bruant—his proper name—was an entertainer and bar owner known for his bawdy songs and his habit of insulting customers. Lautrec, who had a permanent table at his establishment, credited Bruant as the first to exhibit his art.
At the Cirque Fernando, Rider on a White Horse
1887-1888
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901)
On View
Toulouse-Lautrec lived and worked in Montmartre, a bohemian neighborhood at the northern frontier of Paris, from 1886 to 1898. Like the Moulin Rouge dance hall and the Chat Noir café, the Cirque Fernando was a fixture of Montmartre’s seedy entertainment scene and a favorite haunt of the artist. Here he portrayed an equestrian performer at the circus; with rouged cheeks and a scant skirt, she charges into the composition, riding bareback and clutching her horse’s mane. Leaving much of the cardboard support bare, the artist laid in his composition with bold, rapid strokes of pastel, reserving more careful work in wet peinture à l’essence for the rider’s costume and enigmatic expression.
Details
- Artist Name: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901)
- Title: At the Cirque Fernando, Rider on a White Horse
- Date: 1887-1888
- Medium: Pastel and drained oil on board
- Dimensions: 23-5/8 x 31-1/4 in. (60 x 79.5 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1978.13.2.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
[Galerie Georges Petit, Paris].
Antonio Santa-Marina, Buenos Aires [by 1933], (sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 April 1974, lot 23, to);
[P. & D. Colnaghi, G.M.B.H., Zurich, sold 18 May 1978 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Antonio Santa-Marina, Buenos Aires [by 1933], (sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 April 1974, lot 23, to);
[P. & D. Colnaghi, G.M.B.H., Zurich, sold 18 May 1978 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Vème Exposition des XX
- Brussels, 1888-02-06 to
La Pintura Francesca de Manet a Nuestros Dias
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1949-07 to
Degas et Lautrec
- Galeria Viau, 1950 to
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Di Tella 1864-1964
- , 1964-10-30 to 1964-11-29
Escuela Francesca siglos XIX y XX
- Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1933-10-20 to 1933-11-05
Toulouse-Lautrec: The Solitude of "La Vie Moderne"
- Norton Simon Museum, 1992-01-16 to 1992-09-20
By Day & By Night: Paris in the Belle Époque
- Norton Simon Museum, 2019-10-04 to 2020-03-02
Reinstallation of South Wing
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-10-07 to 1995-08-13
- Thomson, Richard, Toulouse-Lautrec, fig. b p. 234
- The Burlington Magazine, fig. 58
- Dortu, M. G., Toulouse-Lautrec et son Oeuvre, no. P315
- Stuckey, Charles, Toulouse-Lautrec: Paintings, fig. 6 p. 126
- Joyant, Maurice, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1864-1901, peintre, 1926, p. 265
- Sunset, 1979, pp. 110-113
- The French Impressionists in Southern California: Paintings, Sculptures and Prints in Public Collections. A Guide Book and Catalogue, 1984, p. 78
- Murray, G., Toulouse-Lautrec: The Formative Years 1878-1891, 1991, fig. 89 pp. 131, 146, 148, 190-191, 246
- Brettell, Richard R., et al., Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century European Drawings in the Robert Lehman Collection, 2002, fig. 145.3 pp. 277-281
- Brettell, Richard R. and Stephen F. Eisenman, Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, volume 1, 2006,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1523 p. 416
- Ireson, Nancy and Linda Wolk-Simon, Miss Lala au Cirque Fernando, 2013,
- Florence Saragoza et Gale Murray, Missing Écuyère : à propos d’un tirage photographique inédit, 2023, pp. 69-77
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