Elles: Woman In a Corset

The work belongs to a series that focuses on the lives of prostitutes who worked on the rue de Moulins and rue de Richelieu, neighborhoods where the exchange of money for sexual services was openly tolerated. By depicting the woman’s averted gaze and the intimate act of undressing, Toulouse‑Lautrec highlights the humanity and vulnerability of women often reduced to mere objects of pleasure.

Executed as a color lithograph, the piece combines bold outlines with a limited, muted palette that captures the dim lighting of the interior. The print’s loose, sketch‑like quality conveys immediacy, while the careful handling of texture suggests the stiffness of the corset and the softness of the surrounding fabrics.

Created in the 1890s, the lithograph was part of a limited run of twelve prints that Toulouse‑Lautrec released as the series Elles. The series circulated among collectors interested in his candid portrayals of contemporary Parisian life, and the individual prints have since entered museum and private collections focused on fin‑de‑siècle French art.

During the Belle Époque, the legal status of prostitution in Paris allowed a visible, regulated industry that attracted both wealthy patrons and artists. While many contemporaries avoided such subjects, Toulouse‑Lautrec’s work aligns with a broader realist tendency to depict everyday urban experiences, echoing the social observations of writers like Émile Zola.