Creator Biography
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, French, 1864–1901 (artist).
Preview
Creation Date
1899 (original)
Geography
France
Culture
French
Medium
Print (reproduction), Drawing (original)
Dimensions
11 1/2 × 16 3/4 in. (31.7 × 42.5 cm)
Credit Line
Purchase by the Department of Art History, 2025
Accession Number
2025.117.37
References
Toulouse-Lautrec's The Circus: Thirty-Nine Crayon Drawings in Color. Dover Publications, 2006.
Description
French circuses perpetuated harmful stereotypes, presenting Black people as comedic caricatures and reinforcing racist social hierarchies. Lautrec repeatedly depicted this through the minstrel performer in blackface. His depictions can be seen on the cover of a collection of his lithographs (2025.115), in the bottom right corner of May Milton (2025.115.9), and in his drawing Nègre jouant du banjo (2025.117.25) within this series. However, in this drawing Lautrec depicts a specific man, Chocolat, a clown who was known off stage as Rafael Padilla. Padilla played into racialized stereotypes to become the first successful Black performer in France.
This print is part of a larger collection (2025.117.1–2025.117.39) whose overarching record can be found here.
Keywords
Department of Art History Collection, After 1800, Art Nouveau, Post-Impressionism, French