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Eldorado... Aristide Bruant dans son Cabaret

Poster
1892 (printed)
Artist/Maker
Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (artist)
Place of origin
Paris (printed)

This poster designed by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is a copy of an earlier poster entitled Ambassadeurs that he designed for the singer Aristide Bruant. Toulouse-Lautrec created four posters for Bruant in 1892. This one advertises Bruant's café-cabaret at the Eldorado on Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris. Aristide Bruant was a satirical singer who is shown here as a powerful, almost menacing figure. The poster owes its impact to the simplicity of the outlines and the palette, which comprises solid blocks of five colours. During the 1890s Toulouse-Lautrec visited the cabarets of Montmartre in Paris, producing a series of images depicting its nocturnal population.

Object details

Categories
Prints
Advertising
Entertainment & Leisure
Posters
Object type
Poster
TitleEldorado... Aristide Bruant dans son Cabaret (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Colour lithograph on paper
Lithographic Ink
Paper
Planographic Printing
Colour Lithograph
Brief description
'Eldorado..Aristide Bruant dans son Cabaret', a lithograph poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1892.
Physical description
Depicts a man wearing a blue coat, black hat and red scarf, facing towards the right, with a walking stick in his gloved hand against a yellow ground.
Dimensions
  • Height: 1513mm
  • Width: 1002mm
53 1/2 x 37 inches from catalogue.
Marks and inscriptions
  • Eldorado... Aristide Bruant dans son Cabaret (Main text)
  • THL (Monogram, lower right)
  • Imp Bourgerie et Cie le 83 Fg St. Denis (Affiches Ancourt) (Lower right)
  • République Française stamp (top right)
Gallery label
(1987-2006)
'American and European Art and Design 1800-1900'

This poster advertises the singer Aristide Bruant in his cabaret at the Eldorado café-concert. During the 1890s Toulouse-Lautrec frequented the cabarets of Montmatre, and produced a series of images depicting such protagonists of that nocturnal world as Jane Avril, Yvette Gilbert, 'La Goulue', and May Belfort. Lautrec designed four posters for Aristide Bruant in 1892 showing the singer, who specialized in a biting delivery of satirical songs, as a powerful, almost menacing, figure. The poster owes its impact to simplicity of composition, and solid blocks of colour which recall Japanese prints.
Subjects depicted
Entertainment
Leisure
Scarf
Singer
Cabaret
Gloves
Bruant, Aristide
Places depicted
Paris
Montmartre
Summary
This poster designed by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is a copy of an earlier poster entitled Ambassadeurs that he designed for the singer Aristide Bruant. Toulouse-Lautrec created four posters for Bruant in 1892. This one advertises Bruant's café-cabaret at the Eldorado on Boulevard de Strasbourg in Paris. Aristide Bruant was a satirical singer who is shown here as a powerful, almost menacing figure. The poster owes its impact to the simplicity of the outlines and the palette, which comprises solid blocks of five colours. During the 1890s Toulouse-Lautrec visited the cabarets of Montmartre in Paris, producing a series of images depicting its nocturnal population.
Associated object
E.228-1921 (Duplicate)
Bibliographic references
  • Taken from Departmental Circulation Register 1967
  • The following excerpts are from Henri Perruchot's biography of Toulouse-Lautrec (published by Collier, 1962): '"Who will deliver us from the likeness of Aristide Bruant?" wrote a contributor to La Vie Parisienne. "You can't go anywhere without finding yourself face to face with him. It has been said that M. Bruant is an artist...How can he consent to appear on the walls side by side with the Bec Auer [for examples see CIRC.604-1962 and E.286-1921] and the Oriflamme. He must suffer from such propinquity". Like many Parisian cabaret stars of the fin de siècle, he is chiefly remembered today as a subject of Toulouse-Lautrec. In 1885, the impresario behind Le Chat Noir, Rodolphe Salis, moved with great fanfare to larger premises around the corner at 12 Rue Victor-Masse. Bruant opened Le Mirliton in the old location at 84 Boulevard Rochechouart. Toulouse-Lautrec was a keen customer at both establishments becoming a close friend of Bruant, intrigued by his brand of vaudevillian chanson réaliste. The main attraction was his insulting humour as he goaded and taunted the audience. ‘Bruant had nothing but contempt for the people who came to Montmartre to seek out low life in his establishment. “They’re a lot of idiots,” said Aristide, “they don’t even understand what I sing to them. They can’t understand because they don’t know what it is to starve. I take my revenge by treating them worse than dogs. They laugh till the tears run down their cheeks; they think I’m joking. But it’s the thought of the past, and the horrors I’ve seen, that makes me speak as I do.”’ Bruant was born in 1851 to a bourgeois landowner but the family soon after lost their fortune and he made his way to Paris at the age of 15 to look for work. Drawn to the rich slang of the working class in the cities north eastern arrondissements such as Belleville and Montmartre, he began writing songs with verlan and set himself up as a troubadour of the Parisian poor. His trademark style was this broad-brimmed black hat, black cape, red shirt and scarf, and black leather boots. ‘Like Lautrec, but with a more humanitarian indignation and a deeper anger, he sympathised with the world of the outcasts. He sang of the dregs, the dens, the brothels and the prisons, the wastelands where slept the down-and-outs and the roughs of the district fought their battles. Lautrec did not share Bruant’s compassion. He [as an aristocrat] was a complete stranger to the pity that flavoured his friend’s songs’. Bruant became a rich man with his act, taking his show to larger theatres in the 1890s such as the Eldorado (CIRC.669-1967 and E.228-1921) and Les Ambassadeurs (CIRC.551-1962 and E.227-1921). His increased success and affluence over the years became incongruous with the authenticity of his performance as a voice of the poor but he nonetheless continued in the same vein, working up until his death in 1925.
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
CIRC.669-1967

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Record createdJanuary 12, 2004
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O89184/eldorado-aristide-bruant-dans-son-poster-henri-de-toulouse/
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