This work is a study for the cover of the last issue of L'Estampe Originale, a quarterly album published 1893–95, of original prints by young French artists. An appropriate cover image, it shows stagehands drawing down the curtain on a performance. In the middle, a plaster elephant stands guard atop a cartouche for the table of contents. Seated at left is Misia Natanson, the glamorous patroness of such poets and artists as Verlaine and Mallarmé, Bonnard, Vuillard, and Lautrec.

Until recent restoration, this work was sliced into two pieces and for many years framed so as to reveal only Mme Natanson in her loge.

Inscription: Signed, dated, and inscribed (lower right): à Meth, Natanson / Hommages de / HTLautrec [HTL in monogram] 95 (to Madame Thadée Natanson / With the compliments of / HTLautrec 95)

Misia Natanson, Paris (from 1895); [Ambroise Vollard, Paris]; Marcel Guérin, Paris (by 1926–at least 1939); [Jacques Lindon, New York, until 1950; sold December 9 for $8,000 to Rodgers]; Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers, New York (1950–64; his life interest, 1964–d. 1972; her life interest, 1964–d. 1992)

Paris. Musée des Arts Décoratifs. "Exposition H. de Toulouse-Lautrec," April 9–May 17, 1931, no. 138 (as "Madame Th. Natanson," lent by M. Marcel Guérin).

Paris. Galerie M. Knoedler & Cie. "Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864–1901," March 1938, no. 26 (lent by M. Marcel Guérin).

Hartford. Wadsworth Atheneum. "Music Makers," July 9–August 9, 1959, no. 18 (lent by Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Toulouse-Lautrec in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," July 2–September 29, 1996, unnumbered cat. (fig. 45).

Roslyn Harbor, N.Y. Nassau County Museum of Art. "Art and Entertainment," November 18, 2007–February 3, 2008, no catalogue.

Maurice Joyant. "Peintre." Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864–1901. 1, Paris, 1926, p. 292, as in the collection of Marcel Guérin.

Jacques Lassaigne. Toulouse-Lautrec. London, 1939, p. 167, ill. p. 117, as Madame Missia [sic] Natanson, in the collection of Marcel Guérin.

Gerstle Mack. Letter to Mrs. Richard Rodgers. December 20, 1950, discusses this work, as well as a lithograph for which it is a study.

Misia Sert. Two or Three Muses: The Memoirs of Misia Sert. London, 1953, p. 62, remarks that she prefered it to all other portraits of herself Toulouse-Lautrec painted.

Lawrence Hanson and Elisabeth Hanson. The Tragic Life of Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864–1901. London, 1956, p. 158, remark that the subject was one of the few women of his own class with whom Lautrec could interact, and thus he expressed his devotion with this and numerous other portraits.

Henri Perruchot. T-Lautrec. [Paris], 1958, p. 243 [English ed., 1960, p. 203].

James Laver. "Fashion, Art, and Beauty." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 26 (November 1967), p. 127, ill. (detail).

Charles Sterling and Margaretta M. Salinger. "XIX–XX Centuries." French Paintings: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 3, New York, 1967, pp. 205–6, ill. (detail).

M. G. Dortu. Toulouse-Lautrec et son œuvre. New York, 1971, vol. 3, pp. 368–69, no. P.599, ill., adds the sitter and Vollard to the provenance of this picture.

G. M. Sugana in The Complete Paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec. London, 1973, p. 113, no. 413.

Götz Adriani. Toulouse-Lautrec: Das gesamte graphische Werk. Cologne, 1976, p. 263.

Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale. Misia: The Life of Misia Sert. New York, 1980, p. 41, ill. opp. p. 114 (color detail).

Tom Prideaux. "Misia, a free spirit, knew (and loved) just about everyone." Smithsonian 10 (February 1980), p. 94, ill. on cover (color detail).

Götz Adriani. Toulouse-Lautrec: Das gesamte graphische Werk. Cologne, 1986, p. 181.

Gary Tinterow in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1992–1993." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 51 (Fall 1993), p. 52, ill. (color), remarks that this is a study for the cover of the final issue of "L'estampe originale," for which Lautrec had also provided the first cover illustration, noting the appropriateness of the curtain being rung down; identifies the plaster elephant as one used previously as an illustration for a Hindustani play, "The Terracotta Chariot"; states that although the work had been sliced into two pieces, it has recently been skillfully pieced together.

Colta Ives. Toulouse-Lautrec in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1996, pp. 45, 61, fig. 45, suggests that the ornamental elephant may have been inspired by the animal rides of the Bois de Boulogne or the papier-maché model at the Moulin Rouge.

Misia Natanson was one of Lautrec's favorite models. At the time of this portrait, she was the wife of Thadée Natanson, who in 1891 founded "La revue blanche," a magazine devoted to contemporary arts and letters. She later married the financier Alfred Edwards and, finally, the Spanish artist José-Maria Sert.

Gerstle Mack [see Ref. 1950] describes Lautrec's portraits of Mme Natanson in the 1952 edition of "Toulouse-Lautrec", including a poster for "La revue blanche" in 1935 (Delteil 355), the cover for "L'estampe originale" in 1895, a poster in 1896 for the Ault Wiborg Co., a head in pastel and gouache in 1896, two portraits in 1897, and two pencil drawings in 1898.

This painting is a study for a lithograph which served as the last issue of "L'estampe originale" in March 1895 (Delteil 127; MMA 22.82.1–81).

In a letter to Mrs. Rodgers in December 1950, Mack [see Ref.] states that the figure of Madame Natanson was to appear on the back of the cover, while the elephant and the stagehand were on the front. The painting was folded under and framed to show only its left hand side, but has since been straightened out, conserved, and reframed to show the entire sheet.