La toilette
Medium
transfer lithograph in gray on heavy japan paper
Dimensions
image: 30.9 x 25.9 cm (12 3/16 x 10 3/16 in.) sheet: 38.2 x 27.9 cm (15 1/16 x 11 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Virginia and Ira Jackson Collection, gift in memory of Virginia H. Jackson
Accession Number
1996.151.67
Art Historical Context
Pierre Puvis de Chav (1824–1898), a leading Symbolist painter, created *La Toilette* in 1895, capturing an intimate moment of grooming in his signature dreamlike style. Renowned for monumental murals adorning public buildings like the Paris Panthéon, Puvis blended classical antiquity with poetic idealism, using simplified forms and soft, ethereal tones to evoke timeless serenity. This late-career work reflects the fin-de-siècle fascination with private rituals, transforming everyday toiletry into a contemplative, almost mystical scene. Rendered as a transfer lithograph in subtle gray tones on...
About the Artist
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes · 1824–1898
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824–1898) was a French painter who became the foremost muralist of nineteenth-century France and a crucial bridge between academic tradition and modernism. Born in Lyon to a prosperous family, he studied briefly with Henri Scheffer and Thomas Couture in Paris and traveled to Italy, where the frescoes of the Italian Renaissance made a lasting impression on his artistic v...