The Jockeys
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de
Albi, 1864 - Langon, 1901
The Jockeys, 1882
Signed lower right: ''H T Lautrec''.
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
Location: Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, Madrid
Oil on canvas
64,5 x 45 cm
CTB.1995.17
Artwork history
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M. Payot, París
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Palais Galliéra, Paris, lot 48, March 13, 1961
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M. Mage, París
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Christie’s Auctions, London, lot 17, December, 1980
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Private Collection
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Christie’s Auctions, London, lot 20, June 26, 1995
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Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
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-Dortu, M. G.: Toulouse-Lautrec et son oeuvre. New York, Collectors Editions, 1971 , vol. 1, p. 188, lám.; vol. 2, p. 81.
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-Sugana, G. M.: Tout l’oeuvre peint de Toulouse-Lautrec. Foucart, Bruno (intr.); Devoisins, Jean; y Gonella, Christine (rev. & updated). París, Flammarion, 1986 [Ed. org. it.: Milan, Rizzoli, 1977], n. 194, p. 100, fig.
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-Christie, Manson & Woods.: Impressionist and modern paintings, watercolours and sculpture (part I). [Exhib. Cat.]. London, June 26, 1995 , p. 52, lám.
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-De Canaletto a Kandinsky. Obras maestras de la colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. [Exhib. Cat. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza]. Llorens Serra, Tomàs (ed.). Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 1996 , n. 69, p. 184. [Sheet by Ronald Pickvance]
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-From Zurbaran to Picasso. Masterpieces from the Collection of Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Shanghai, Shanghai Museum; Pekín, China National Art Gallery [Exhib. Cat.], 1996, p. 132.
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-Del vedutismo a las primeras vanguardias. Obras maestras de la Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Bilbao, Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao [Exhib. Cat.], 1997, n. 52, p. 170.
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-The Spirit of the Place. Masterworks from the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Nueva York, The Frick Collection; Hartford (CT), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art [Exhib. Cat.], 1997, n. 12, p. 48.
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-Masterworks from the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Tokio, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; Takaoka, Takaoka Art Museum; Nagoya, Matsuzaka Art Museum; Sendai, Miyagi Museum of Art [Exhib. Cat.], 1998, n. 72, p. 162.
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-Do impresionismo ó fauvismo: A pintura do cambio de século en París. Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Santiago de Compostela, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea [Exhib. Cat.], 1999, n. 29, p. 90.
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-Del impresionismo a la vanguardia en la Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Barcelona, Centre Cultural Caixa Catalunya [Exhib. Cat.], 1999, p. 92.
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-De Corot a Monet. Los orígenes de la pintura moderna en la Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Valencia, Museo del Siglo XIX [Exhib. Cat.], 2000, p. 110.
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-Il trionfo del colore. Collezione Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Kandinsky, Roma, Palazzo Ruspoli [Exhib. Cat.], 2002, p. 172.
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-Colección Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza. Arnaldo, Javier (ed.). 2 vols. Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2004, vol. 1, p. 358, lám. p. 359 [ Sheet by Ronald Pickvance]
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-Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Estocolmo, Nationalmuseum[Exhib. Cat.], 2008, n. 1, p. 184, fig. 3 p. 12.
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-Toulouse-Lautrec. Der intime Blick, Linz, Landesgalerie Linz am Oberösterreichischen Landesmuseum [Exhib. Cat.], 2009, p. 59, lám.
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-Borobia, Mar y Alarcó, Paloma (eds.): Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Obras escogidas. Madrid, Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2011, p. 188, lám. p. 189.
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-Alarcó, P. y Borobia, M. (eds.): Guía de la colección. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, 2012, p. 259, lám.
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-Kinsman, Jane y Guéguan, Stéphane: Toulouse-Lautrec. Paris and the Moulin Rouge. [Exhib. Cat.]. Canberra, National Gallery of Australia, 2012, p. 43, lám. p. 42 [Sheet by Jane Kinsman]
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-Picasso-Lautrec. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. [Exhib. Cat. Calvo Serraller; F. ; Alarcó, P.: Exhib. curators], Madrid, 2017, Cat. 59, p. 152 y 153.
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-Colección Carmen Thyssen. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. Ed. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2024. P. 198-199 [Sheet by Ronald Pickvance]
Expert report
«In our family, » Toulouse-Lautrec quipped, «once baptised, one is in the saddle.» Lautrec’s father was a fanatical-and somewhat idiosyncratic-horseman, falconer, huntsman and racegoer, who intended his only child to follow his example. But the young boy’s riding ambitions were shattered by the breaking of both legs and the resulting stunting of their growth. Nonetheless, Lautrec’s intense curiosity for all things equestrian was maintained when, from 1878 to 1882, he became the pupil of the well-known sporting artist, René Princeteau (1844-1914), a close friend of his father’s. His own early work -precociously between the ages of fourteen and eighteen- is dominated by horse subjects. He copied Géricault and more recent Salon artists; essayed racing subjects dear to Princeteau; looked at work of John-Lewis Brown, another specialist of hunting scenes and race-meetings; but he was not in the least inspired by the equestrian subjects of Degas, an artist who would later attract all his admiration.
Whether he actually painted known racecourse meetings is unlikely. It seems more probable that he made rapid exploratory sketches on the spot, and subsequently painted the composition in the studio. The Jockeys, though undated, is usually ascribed to the year 1882, together with a closely related, but smaller, composition of the same motif. It is freely painted in a skein of short, staccato brushstrokes whose liveliness adds to the animation of the scene. The presence of the running dog suggests a “gentlemanly” country race-meeting, rather than the famous metropolitan tracks at Longchamp or Auteuil. These appear to be “gentleman-jockeys” on their curiously elongated steeds. A highly charged sky of threatening rain clouds produces a striking contre-jour effect: the scene is back-lit, with thrown shadows falling towards us, the spectators (of the picture).
After 1882, the incidence of equestrian subjects diminished as Lautrec adopted the more rigorous procedures of a Parisian atelier training and subsequently chose la vie moderne of Montmartre as his essential subject-matter. An occasional circus painting (1888); and the series of drawings of performing circus horses done from memory in the asylum at Neuilly in 1899, as well a small lithographic series projected in the same year but never brought to a satisfactory conclusion, are highlights of Lautrec’s later treatment of the horse.
Ronald Pickvance