Anklet
before 1922
Maker Unknown
Arts of Africa
This portrait of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s friend the studio photographer Paul Sescau is one of several similar paintings Lautrec made of men in his social circle. Sescau is dressed like a modern boulevardier, or fashionable man-about-town, in a jacket, crisp white collar, and top hat, leaning jauntily on a cane in a corner of the artist’s studio, with canvases stacked on the floor around him. On the wall hangs a Japanese scroll painting (kakemono) that attests to Lautrec’s interest in Japanese art and brings the imagined space of its depicted landscape into the ordinary space of a Parisian studio. The scroll, like the top hat and cane, emphasizes the elegant verticality of the composition, which Lautrec accentuated further by adding a strip of cardboard at the bottom.
When Sescau sold this painting to the critic Roger Marx, Lautrec brokered the deal and stated: “I consider it one of my best.”
When Sescau sold this painting to the critic Roger Marx, Lautrec brokered the deal and stated: “I consider it one of my best.”
- Maker/Artist
- Maker Unknown
- Classification
- Accessories
- Formatted Medium
- Rawhide, iron, fiber
- Locations
- Place made: Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Dimensions
- 7 1/2 x 2 1/2 in. (19.1 x 6.4 cm)
- Departments
- Arts of Africa
- Accession Number
- 22.660
- Credit Line
- Museum Expedition 1922, Robert B. Woodward Memorial Fund
- Rights Statement
- Creative Commons-BY
- Museum Location
- This item is not on view
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