Divan Japonais.

“Of all the female entertainers Lautrec celebrated in his posters, Jane Avril and Yvette Guilbert were the two with whom he maintained the longest friendship. He portrayed them both together in one of his most brilliant posters, Divan Japonais. Although Guilbert was the performer at this rather shabby cabaret when it opened in the spring of (1893), Lautrec made the half-Italian Avril the local figure in his composition. Under a shock of red-orange hair topped with a pagoda-shaped hat and towering plume, her black, silhouetted figure dominates the frontal plane as she nor her companion, Edouard Dujardin, the distinguished founder of the Symbolist Revue Wagnerienne, deign to look at Guilbert on stage, whom Lautrec portrayed as ‘headless’, probably as a witty response to her complaint that he caricatured her and made her ugly”.

Reference: Wagner, p.21

This
poster is from the series, Les
Maitres de l’Affiche (The
Masters of the Poster ) took five years to produce from 1895 to1900.

It
is one of the most prestigious and influential art publications in
history. This series features the most outstanding posters of the
late 19th century when the medium  was only used for commercial
advertising.  During the 19th century the poster celebrated its
golden era under the hands of famous artist such as, Cheret, Toulouse
Lautrec, Mucha and Steinlen. They elevated the poster from a
commercial medium to innovative art form. By  the 1890s, the
streets of every great metropolis were enlivened  by large,
colourful posters. The poster had not only caught the eye of the
public, but it’s best examples were already being regarded as works
of art, to be exhibited, reviewed in journals and collected. 

In 
1895, the Imprimerie Chaix firm published reduced chromolithographic
versions of over 200 the best posters of the period by more than 90
great artists. This Chaix publication Les
Maitres de l’Affiche,
was issued as separate numbered lithographs, every month for 60
months from 1895 to 1900.

Of
the 97 artists represented all were prominent artists of the day.

The
lithograph was issued with an embossed seal at the lower right
further signifying its authenticity.