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A woman facing right sits at a small table looking straight ahead with a wine bottle in front of her.　

The young woman in profile rests her face on her left hand, the other elbow on the table. She’s not smiling as she leans into the light-yellow round table staring straight toward right, with a half-filled green bottle of wine and nearly empty drinking glass, The bottle and glass sit in the lower right of the painting. Her brown hair is up in a low bun behind her neck, she wears a loose, light-colored blousy top. A similar table behind her is empty. It’s painted in loose textured strokes; background is undescribed strokes of muted blues and purples.

Gallery Text

Aristide Bruant, a cabaret owner, singer, and songwriter who exhibited Toulouse-Lautrec’s work in his establishment, gave this painting its title. Bruant’s songs were often about the condition of the urban poor and the theme of excessive drinking. The model for the sitter in this composition is Suzanne Valadon, a former circus performer who was Toulouse-Lautrec’s mistress for two years. A decade after this painting was created, Valadon began making her own drawings, and later in life she was a well-known artist. Here, Valadon’s scowl, slumped pose, and darkened eyes befit Bruant’s title perfectly, while the single glass and half-empty bottle of wine on the table suggest she drinks alone. The sketchy application of paint, which was diluted with turpentine and then brushed over an underdrawing approximates the hazy, indistinct perception of the café that the inebriated sitter would have through her halfclosed eyes. Many of Toulouse-Lautrec’s contemporaries depicted the social phenomenon of alcoholism among women, which was a growing concern in medical circles.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1951.63
People
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French (Albi 1864 - 1901 Malromé)
Title
The Hangover (Suzanne Valadon)
Other Titles
Original Language Title: Gueule de Bois / La Buveuse
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1887-1889
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/229060

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
47 x 55.3 cm (18 1/2 x 21 3/4 in.)
framed: 71.2 x 79 x 9 cm (28 1/16 x 31 1/8 x 3 9/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: HTLautrec
  • inscription: Back of canvas, handwritte in black chalk or crayon: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
  • inscription: On stretcher, handwritten in black ink(?): 47018
  • label: verso, rectangular with red border, blue printed ink: Customs and Excise Canada / Oct 15 1945 / E. Mayland [signed, blue ink] Officer / Outside Division / MONTREAL, P.Q.
  • label: verso, rectangle, black ink: Lautrec No. [printed, black ink] 10869 / Femme assise
  • label: verso, printed, rectangle with serrated edges: 6522
  • label: verso, printed, rectangle with serrated edges: 2,420
  • label: verso, rectangle with red on ends, graphite: Picture #6
  • label: verso, rectangle with cut corners, red border, red ink: Toulouse-Lautrec / (Henri de) / At the Café [underlined] / V.H. 187
  • label: verso, printed, square: CONSIGN NO. / 18 1/2 [graphite] DATE / 21 3/4 [graphite] / LOT. NO. REMARKS
  • label: verso, square, printed in red, under yellow printed label: DAY & MEYER
  • label: verso, square, printed in yellow, over red label: DAY & MEYER / MURRAY & YOUNG / FLOOR / ROOM / PRICE 22 [in black marker]
  • label: verso, white label, rectangle, black ballpoint : 21 ptg
  • label: verso, blue label, blue printed and typewritten text: Wildenstein & Co., Inc. - 19 East 64 St. - New York 21[printed] / Loan [typewritten] Exhibition [printed] 6 Post-Impressionists [typewritten] Date [printed] 4/8-5/8, 1948 [typewritten] / Artist [printed] Lautrec [typewritten] Title [printed] La Buveuse, or Gueule de Bois [typewritten] / Lender [printed] Anonymous [typewritten] No. [printed] 26 [typewritten]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
?Aristide Bruant, Paris. Maurice Masson, sold [through his sale, Drouot, Paris, June 22, 1911, lot 40]. [Stephen Bourgeois, New York, 1911] [1], sold; to Sir William Cornelius Van Horne, Montreal, 1911, by descent; to the Van Horne family; sold [through Parke-Bernet, New York, January 24, 1946, lot 6]; to Maurice Wertheim, New York, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1951

Notes:
[1] Stephane Bourgeois was named as lender to the 1913 Armory show, however, per Janet M. Brooke's "Discerning Tastes: Montreal Collectors 1880-1920," (1989, pg. 62), it is known that William Van Horne sent the works to the 1913 Armory show with Bourgeois acting on his behalf.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
Accession Year
1951
Object Number
1951.63
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK HAS SIGNIFICANT LOAN RESTRICTIONS BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Gustave Coquiot, H. de Toulouse-Lautrec, A. Blaizot (Paris, France, 1913), repr. p. 145
  • International Exhibition of Modern Art, exh. cat., Armory of the 69th Infantry (New York, NY, 1913), no. 1061
  • A. Brook, "Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec", The Arts (September 1923), p. 142
  • Maurice Joyant, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1864-1901 (Paris, France, 1926), vol. I, pp. 98, 267, repr. p. 87
  • Gotthard Jedlicka, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Bruno Cassirer (Berlin, Germany, 1929), repr. p. 109
  • The Sir William Van Horne Collection, exh. cat., Art Association of Montreal (Montreal, Canada, 1933), no. 148
  • E. Schaub-Koch, Psychoanalyse d'un peintre moderne (Paris, France, 1935), p. 178
  • Gerstle Mack, Toulouse-Lautrec, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (New York, NY, 1938), p. 293
  • Jacques Lassaigne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Hyperion Press (London, England and New York, NY, 1939), p. 14, repr. p. 76
  • J. Rinaldini, Toulouse-Lautrec (Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1942), repr. p. 38
  • Loan Exhibition of Great Paintings in Aid of Allied Merchant Seamen, exh. cat., Art Gallery of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1944), no. 79
  • Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Today's Collectors: Modern Milestones", Art News (June 1946), vol. XLV, no. 4, p. 64; repr. in b/w p. 30
  • French Painting since 1870, lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), pp. 34-37, repr. p. 35
  • Twenty Distinguished Modern Paintings (sale of the van Horne collection), auct. cat., Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. (New York, NY, January 24, 1946), p. 10
  • Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Company (New York, NY, 1948), no. 26
  • La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), no. 15, pp. pp. 42-44
  • A Collector's Exhibition: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Collections of Members of the Advisory Committee of the Institute of Fine Arts., exh. cat., Knoedler & Co. Inc. (New York, NY, 1950), no. 15
  • Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Toulouse-Lautrec: the Artist", ARTnews Annual (1951), no. 20, pp. 87-126; repr. p. 100
  • Francis Jourdain and Jean Adhémar, T-Lautrec: Essai sur Toulouse-Lautrec, P. Tisne (Paris, France, 1952), repr. p. 26
  • Jacques Lassaigne, Lautrec, Skira (Geneva, Switzerland, 1953), p. 36, repr. p. 26
  • Howard Devree, "By French Masters: Memorable Loan Show in Philadelphia", The New York Times (New York, NY, July 7 1957), p. 70, p. 70
  • Henri Perruchot, La Vie de Toulouse-Lautrec (Paris, France, 1958), p. 137
  • Vincent van Gogh, The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh (Greenwich, CT, 1958), no. 470
  • The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 56, repr. p. 57
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), p. 52, pl. 21
  • 1913 Armory Show: Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, exh. cat., Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute (Utica, NY, 1963), repr.
  • Milton W. Brown, The Story of the Armory Show, The Joseph H. Hirshorn Foundation (New York, NY, 1963), repr. p. 294
  • Philippe Huisman and M. G. Dortu, Lautrec par Lautrec (Paris, France, 1964), pp. 59, 253
  • Maurice Sérullaz, Les Peintres Maudits, Librairie Hachette (Paris, France, 1968), repr. p. 14
  • G. Caproni and G. M. Sugana, L'Opera Completa di Toulouse-Lautrec (Milan, Italy, 1969), no. 227a
  • "The Calendar", Harvard University Gazette (Cambridge, MA, June 19, 1970), repr. b/w p. 8
  • Toulouse-Lautrec, Casa Editrice G. C. Sansoni (Florence, Italy, 1970), repr.
  • M. G. Dortu, Toulouse-Lautrec et son oeuvre (New York, NY, 1971), vol. II, no. P340, p. 167
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 37
  • Diane Kelder, The Great Book of French Impressionism, Abbeville Press (New York, NY, 1980), repr. in b/w p. 290
  • Bogomila Welsh-Ovcharov, Vincent van Gogh and the Birth of Cloisonism, exh. cat., Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1981), pp. 319, 340
  • Vivien Raynor, "Art: Impressionist Show at the I.B.M. Gallery" [review], The New York Times (New York, NY, April 26, 1985), p. C24
  • Sandy Easterbrook, "Technical Examination and Comparison of Two Toulouse-Lautrec Paintings in the Wertheim Collection of the Fogg Art Museum" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 1985), Unpublished, pp. 1-28 passim
  • Kristin A. Mortimer and William G. Klingelhofer, Harvard University Art Museums: A Guide to the Collections, Harvard University Art Museums and Abbeville Press (Cambridge and New York, 1986), no. 222, p. 195, repr. in b/w
  • John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 16, pp. 81-83, repr. in color p. 82
  • Janet M. Brooke, Discerning Tastes: Montreal Collectors 1880-1920, exh. cat., The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Montreal, Canada, 1989), fig. 23, p. 62
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 90, color plate; p. 131, 256, repr. b/w cat. no. 388
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color no. 22, p. 75
  • Toulouse-Lautrec, exh. cat., South Bank Centre/Reunion des Musées Nationaux (London, England and Paris, France, 1991), no. 46, p. 190, repr. in b/w
  • Claire Freches and Jose Freches, Toulouse-Lautrec: Les Lumieres de la Nuit, Decouvertes Gallimard/Reunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 1991), repr. in color on title page, p. 11
  • Gale B. Murray, Toulouse-Lautrec: the Formative Years, 1878-1891, The Clarendon Press (Oxford, England, 1991), repr. in b/w p. 164; text pp. 163-165
  • Frank Milner, Toulouse-Lautrec, Smithmark (New York, NY, 1992), repr. in color pps. 56-57, text p. 57
  • Daniele Devynck, Toulouse-Lautrec, Profils de l'Art, Chene (Paris, France, 1992), repr. in color no. 2, p. 29
  • Gale B. Murray, ed., Toulouse-Lautrec: a Retrospective, Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc. (New York, NY, 1992), repr. as colorplate 26
  • Gilles Neyret, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 1864-1901, Benedikt Taschen Verlag (Cologne, Germany, 1993), repr. in color p. 40
  • Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (Japan, 1994), repr. in color, fig. 12
  • "Toulouse-Lautrec and Women", exh. cat., Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation (Andros, 2001), p. 21, repr. as fig. 4
  • Daniele Devynck, "Toulouse-Lautrec and Women", Toulouse-Lautrec Woman as Mtyh, Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation and Umberto Allemandi & C. (Andros and Turin, 2001), pp. 19-30, p. 21 and repr. as fig. 4
  • Jill Berk Jimenez, ed., Dictionary of Artists' Models, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers (London and Chicago, 2001), pp. 537-540, repr.
  • Gilles Néret, Renoir: Painter of Happiness, Taschen (Köln, Germany, 2001), repr. in color, p. 276
  • Sarah Kianovsky, Three Women: Early Portraits by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, brochure, Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 2002), repr.
  • Pierre Cabanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Editions Pierre Terrail (Paris, 2003), p. 56; repr. in color pp. 58-59
  • Richard Thomson and Philip Dennis Cate, Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art/Art Institute of Chicago (Washington DC / Chicago IL, 2005), p. 69; repr. p. 85 as fig. 92; no. 92 in checklist, p. 256
  • Picasso: Five Themes, exh. cat., Pola Museum of Art (Kanagawa, Japan, 2006), p. 38, repr. as fig. 1
  • Moira Egan and Cushing-Malloy, Inc, Bar Napkin Sonnets (Ann Arbor, 2009), repr. in color on front cover
  • John Varriano, Wine: A Cultural History, Reaktion Books (London, 2010), pp. 201-202, repr. p. 201 as fig. 96
  • Louis-Antoine Prat, Le dessin français au XIXe siècle, Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2011), p. 553
  • Colin B. Bailey and The Frick Collection, Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting, exh. cat., Yale University Press (U.S.) (New Haven, CT and London, England, 2012), p. 206, repr, fig. 12
  • Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6
  • Roland Halbert, La Saison qui Danse ou Carnet de Zigzags pour Toulouse-Lautrec, Editions Multilingues Fraction (Paris, 2016), p. 46, repr.
  • Dennis Cate, ed., Collection Weisman & Michel: Fin de siècle - Belle Époque (1880-1916), exh. cat., Musée de Montmartre Jardins Renoir (Paris, 2019), p. 72, fig. 4
  • Laure-Caroline Semmer, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Librairie Larousse (Paris, 2019), p. 42, repr. p. 44
  • Helen Burnham, Mary Weaver Chapin, and Joanna Wendel, Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris, exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Boston, 2019), pp. 13-14, repr. p. 14 as fig. 3
  • Junie Wang, The Narrative of Art: Unveiling Stories behind 21 Masterpiece Paintings, Locus Publishing (Taipei, 2022), p. 139, repr.

Exhibition History

  • Exhibition of Modern Art, Armory of the 69th Infantry, New York, 01/01/1913 - 12/31/1913
  • Exhibition: A selection from the collection of the late Sir William Van Horne KCMG 1843-1915, Art Association of Montreal, Montreal, 01/01/1933 - 12/31/1933
  • Loan Exhibition of Great Paintings in Aid of Allied Merchant Seamen, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 02/04/1944 - 03/15/1944
  • French Painting since 1870 lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1946 - 09/07/1946; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 07/01/1953 - 09/13/1953
  • Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, Wildenstein Gallery, New York, New York, 04/08/1948 - 05/08/1948
  • La Peinture Française depuis 1870, Musée de la Province de Quebec, 07/12/1949 - 08/07/1949
  • A Collector's Exhibition, M. Knoedler & Co., Newport, 02/06/1950 - 02/25/1950
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07/01/1952 - 09/14/1952
  • French Paintings Since 1870 from the Maurice Wertheim Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/01/1953 - 09/30/1953
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 06/15/1957 - 09/15/1957
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 06/10/1958 - 08/31/1958
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Modern French Art--Monet to Picasso, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, 06/17/1960 - 09/04/1960
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962 - 09/02/1962
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 06/20/1963 - 09/01/1963
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, 06/24/1965 - 09/07/1965
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/03/1968 - 09/22/1968
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 06/01/1971 - 09/30/1971
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972 - 09/01/1972
  • Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985 - 05/25/1985
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990 - 04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990 - 05/13/1990
  • Three Women: Early Portraits by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/06/2002 - 07/21/2002
  • Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 03/20/2005 - 06/12/2005; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 07/16/2005 - 10/10/2005
  • Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 03/25/2019; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 06/17/2019 - 01/01/2050
  • Toulouse-Lautrec and the Stars of Paris, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 04/07/2019 - 08/04/2019

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu