Le Lit

Two heads rest on white pillows, two women gazing at each other, their bodies hidden under a mountain of bedclothes. In Le Lit, Toulouse-Lautrec turned a scene from a Paris brothel into one of the most tender pictures of his career.

The story behind the painting

Toulouse-Lautrec was fascinated by the nightlife of Paris, and through the 1890s he spent more and more time painting everyday life in the official brothels, the maisons closes. In 1892 he was commissioned to make paintings for the salon of a brothel on the rue d'Ambroise. He watched the house, its residents and its visitors, both at work and in quieter moments, and painted sixteen portraits of the women who lived there. Le Lit, painted around 1892, comes from this period of close observation. Our collection data dates it simply to the 1890s, while the source places it around 1892.

What to look for

Two women lie in a bed, looking at each other. Only their heads are visible, resting side by side, their bodies lost under heaped bedclothes. The white sheets stand out against a red bedspread and against the headboard and the wall behind. A warm glow fills the whole scene, perhaps the rosy light of morning, perhaps a gas lamp. The work is painted in oils on cardboard mounted on wood, about 53.5 by 70 cm. It is one of four paintings of similar date that show people in bed, often interpreted as lesbian couples.

Meaning and intent

What strikes the eye is how quiet the scene is. The source describes these brothel paintings as close, intimate observation made with compassion toward the women, without any sense of sensationalism or voyeurism. Nothing here is staged for a customer. Two people share warmth and rest, and their gaze toward each other is the whole subject. By hiding the bodies and keeping only the faces, Lautrec made a picture about closeness rather than display, a private moment in a place usually painted, if at all, through the eyes of its visitors.

Legacy

The painting was exhibited in Paris at the Le Barc de Boutteville gallery during the third exhibition of Impressionists and Symbolists, from 15 November 1892 to about February 1893. It belonged to the collector Roger Marx; after his death in December 1913 it passed in 1914 to another collector, Antonin Personnaz. When Personnaz died in December 1936, it was given to the French state in 1937. It hung first in the Louvre and moved to the Musée d'Orsay in 1986. A related work, Au lit, le baiser, shows two women kissing.