Lot 2 Dα

The painting “Nice: Sur la promenade des Anglais” is a characteristic early work by the French painter Toulouse-Lautrec. Born as Count Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa in the southern French town of Albi, an incurable bone disorder and his lengthy convalescence led him to devote himself to drawing and painting. He utilised themes from his aristocratic surroundings; these consisted of the hunt, horse breeding and falconry.
With a preference for studies of motion and animals, Toulouse-Lautrec spent the early years of his career with the successful animal painter René Princeteau, who was a friend of his father. Based on the model of his work, the young count produced numerous studies of horses and their cavalrymen around 1880/81. The scene with a rider which is up for auction here, “Nice: Sur la promendade des Anglais”, was created when Toulouse-Lautrec was spending the summer with his mother in Nice. This early work, which confidently depicts processes of movement, is distinguished by Lautrec’s precise observation of a fleeting situation. An elegant lady accompanied by a servant steers her horse-drawn carriage down the road along the shore – a gallant young man passing by has raised his hat to greet her. In terms of the choice of colours and handling of the paint, Toulouse-Lautrec has utilised stylistic features of impressionism, with short brushstrokes and dabs of colour placed on the canvas unmixed and without any preliminary drawing. Maurice Joyant, a childhood friend of Lautrec and the best connoisseur of his oeuvre, draws a connection between our painting and the far better known work “Four-in-Hand Carriage in Nice” (Dortu 94), which enabled him to enter the studio of Léon Bonnat, the celebrated “painter of the millionaires”.