Adolphe (The Sad Young Man)
Medium
Crayon lithograph printed in olive green on Japan paper with watermark of Gustave Pellet and Toulouse-Lautrec, from posthumous second edition before 1910; only state
Dimensions
Sheet: 17 3/4 × 11 13/16 in. (45.1 × 30 cm) Image: 10 1/4 × 7 3/16 in. (26 × 18.3 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928
Accession Number
28.81.1
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
**Adolphe (The Sad Young Man)**, created in 1894 by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in collaboration with publisher Gustave Pellet, captures a poignant moment of melancholy. This crayon lithograph, printed in a striking olive green on fine Japan paper, depicts a young man named Adolphe lost in sorrow, his downcast gaze and slumped posture evoking deep emotional isolation. Toulouse-Lautrec, a master of Post-Impressionist printmaking, often portrayed the underbelly of Parisian nightlife in Montmartre, but here he turns to intimate portraiture, highlighting human vulnerability amid the era's bohemian excess. The work's technical brilliance lies in its crayon lithography—a technique Lautrec helped revolutionize for bold, expressive posters. Drawn directly on the stone, the single-state image measures just 10¼ × 7⅛ inches, yet its subtle tonal gradations on textured Japan paper create a haunting intimacy. This posthumous second edition, issued before 1910 with the artists' watermarks, underscores its rarity; acquired via the Harris Brisbane Dick Fund in 1928, it now resides in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Drawings and Prints department. For visitors, *Adolphe* offers a window into fin-de-siècle France, where glamour masked profound sadness.
About the Artist
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec|Gustave Pellet · 1864–1901
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa (1864-1901) was a French Post-Impressionist painter, printmaker, and illustrator whose innovative poster designs revolutionized graphic art and advertising in late 19th-century Paris. Born into an aristocratic family at Albi in southern France, Toulouse-Lautrec's privileged lineage traced back to the Counts of Toulouse and extended uninterrupted to th...