Tailpiece from Au Pied du Sinaï

Art Historical Context

This delicate tailpiece by Henri de Toulouse-Laut, created in 1897, a reproduction of a lith printed on cream wove paper. Though tiny—the image measures just 3.2 by 5.2 centimetersit reveals the artist’s remarkable ability to convey character and atmosphere in miniature. Toulouse-Lautrec, a leading Post-Impressionist, became famous for his vivid portrayals of Parisian nightlife and his pioneering work in color lithography. Lithography allowed artists of the late nineteenth century to produce richly textured, reproducible images that combined drawing’s immediacy with printmaking’s reach. As a tailpiece from *Au Pied du Sinaï*, this small design would have served as a decorative flourish at the close of a printed text, a common practice that brought fine art into everyday books and periodicals. Lautrec’s characteristic bold contours and economical yet expressive line are fully present even at this intimate scale. Now in the Art Institute of Chicago’s Prints and Drawings collection, the work invites close looking and reminds us that Lautrec’s genius extended far beyond his celebrated posters. It offers a quiet window onto the artist’s versatility and the lively graphic culture of fin-de-siècle France.

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...