Cover Design for "Les Vieilles Histoires"
A man walks a muzzled bear along the Seine: a hand-colored lithograph Toulouse-Lautrec made as the cover for a friend's songbook. Full commentary ↓
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Cover Design for "Les Vieilles Histoires" is a print by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1893) in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It measures 45.8 × 61 cm.
In the pictureIn front of a riverside scene painted in pale colors, a man in a black hat walks along leading a bear on a rope. The bear wears a muzzle, and behind them a bridge, the river and chimneys can be seen. At upper right are written the title "Les Vieilles Histoires" and the names of the poet and composer. There are only a few colors: yellow, green and purple.
BackgroundLes Vieilles Histoires (Old Stories) is a songbook of poems by Jean Goudezki set to music by Désiré Dihau, and Lautrec, a friend of Dihau, took on the cover. The man leading the bear is said to be Dihau himself, and what the bear stands for remains a joke. This hand-colored lithograph shows both the cabaret culture of Paris in 1893 and Lautrec's light humor.
Puzzle tipWith lots of blank space and pale colors, it is on the harder side. Fit the bear's brown pieces, the man's black clothes and the lettering at the top first, then join the purple and green background pieces using the arches of the bridge and the horizontal line of the river as guides. Fill in the blank paper pieces at the bottom last.
- Artist
- French, Albi 1864–1901 Saint-André-du-Bois
- Classification
- Prints
- Medium
- Hand-colored lithograph
- Dimensions
- 45.8 × 61 cm
- Credit line
- Bequest of Nanette B. Kelekian, 2020
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ↗
Stories about this work
- Yvette Guilbert, Drawn Twice by Toulouse-Lautrec Four Years Apart
The 1894 Paris edition puts text and image on one page; the 1898 London edition keeps only a few lines. Lautrec's restraint, seen through two versions of the same singer.
- How to Solve Goya's Bullfight Prints, Where Only Line and Tone Remain
Prints with almost no color become top-tier difficulty as puzzles. A strategy guide using Goya's La Tauromaquia series as the example.
