Le Suisse, Menu
Medium
Color lithograph on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
Image: 37 × 26.3 cm (14 5/8 × 10 3/8 in.); Sheet: 41.9 × 32 cm (16 1/2 × 12 5/8 in.)
Classification
lithograph
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
80386
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The self-referential illustration for this menu, likely designed for a rambunctious stag party in honor of Georges Lasserre on December 22, 1896, epitomizes debauchery. Lasserre and a courtesan, outfitted only in a corset and bloomers, toast their neighbors and cavort beside a spilling bottle. An actor portraying a soldier floats above the dinner table, a curiously upright figure in an otherwise disorderly scene.
About the Artist
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 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...