HENRI de TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
(1864-1901)
Désiré Dihau (1835-1909), a bassoon player in the opera orchestra, writer of cabaret songs and distant relative of Lautrec, is seen walking a bear along the auspicious route to the Institute of France which is dimly perceived in the background (in reverse). Lautrec designed music titles for Dihau (twenty-six in all). This particular frontispiece was designed for Dihau’s musical interpretation of the poems of Jean Goudezki who sang his songs in a deep comical voice. Goudezki is satirised in the form of the bear being led by the nose, presumably in reference to his peculiar style.
Gustave Ondet, the publisher of this collection of song titles, lived in the building which housed the Ancourt printing works at 83 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis, where Lautrec worked on his plates. Ondet used well-known artists like Lautrec and Henri Rachoux (1856-1944), among others, to design his music titles as a means of publicity. The Old Tales were a set of poems by Jean Goudezki and were set to the popular romance melodies of Dihau. Lautrec designed the cover (this plate) and five titles in the first series of ten songs, which were all sold at two francs each by Edouard Kleinmann. A second edition was produced in colour at a later date.
Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.
Extract taken from Prints, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery .