Elles: Woman In a Corset
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
Like Cassatt, Toulouse-Lautrec also made a series of color prints depicting the daily lives of women, but instead of portraying bourgeois wives and mothers, his subjects were prostitutes. His series of twelve lithographs entitled Elles boldly confronted the reality of late 19th-century Parisian brothels on the rue de Moulins and the rue de Richelieu, in which rich men's pursuit of pleasure with the daughters of the poor was legal and accepted. Although not portraits of classic beauty, his depictions of Parisian prostitutes embrace the poignancy of human experience. Here, a prostitute unhooks her corset in the presence of a client, her face sympathetically averted from the viewer's gaze.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionSimilar works
Woman in a Corset - Passing Conquest. Plate from the Portfolio "Elles", published by Gustave Pellet
Fastening a Corset, from "Elles"
Fastening a Corset – A Passing Conquest, from "Elles"
Woman Fastening a Corset, Passing Conquest, plate nine from Elles
Woman in Corset (Femme en corset)
After the Ballet