Eldorado

1892

37 7/8 x 55 3/4 in /
94.0 x 139.7 cm

Key stone printed in olive-green, colour stones in yellow, red, blue and black on two sheets of wove paper
Text by the artist
Printed by Bourgerie & Cie. (Affiches Ancourt)
Commissioned by the Eldorado
12 in public collections

Despite the fairly discouraging reactions to his first artistic attempt at publicizing Aristide Bruant, Lautrec also designed this poster, at Bruant's request, for his appearances at the Eldorado on the Boulevard de Strasbourg. He used new stones for the drawing, with the same dimensions and the same color arrangement as the design for his Ambssadeurs poster two years prior, but reversed. Strategically, this was a brilliant move, as the Ambassadeurs poster was already well known to the public. However, the management of the Eldorado was hardly more amenable, as we see from a letter by Lautrec which may refer to the Eldorado poster: ‘Bruant, my good friend. Enclosed the states as requested. As far as the poster ex condition is concerned, there are no good impressions left. The Eldorado management was very mean, haggling over the price and giving me less than the printing costs at Chaix. So I have worked at cost price. I am sorry they misused our good relations to exploit me. It remains to be hoped we will be more careful next time' (Collection M.L.-Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vente Galerie Charpentier, Paris 1959, No. 260).

References: Wittrock P5, Adriani 4, Frey 303