Au Cirque Fernando: L’Écuyère (1887-1888)

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de (1864-1901)

Au Cirque Fernando: L’Écuyère (At the Cirque Fernando: The Horsewoman)
1887–1888
Oil on canvas, 100.3 × 161.3 cm
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

This work, set at a circus, captures the tense moment in which a female trick rider prepares to stand up on her horse and leap through a paper hoop held by a clown. The horse gathers speed, spurred on by the whip of famous ringmaster Monsieur Loyal. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec may have based the garishly made-up rider, dressed in a tutu of gauze and sequins, on Suzanne Valadon, a former circus performer, model, and artist with whom he had a nearly three-year relationship. The rider seems to snarl at Monsieur Loyal, who glares back at her. Toulouse-Lautrec’s setting is the same circus in Montmartre depicted in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s portrait of the Wartenberg sisters. (AIC)