I must admit that quite a few of my most prized book possessions happened by chance.
I rarely looked purposely for something in antiquarian shops, vintage markets or online, but most of the time I simply stumbled upon something I was interested in.
That's basically what happened when, a few weeks ago, browsing the Internet to look for a few fashion images, I eventually ended up on the site of a Florence-based antiquarian bookshop, Gonnelli, and saw in their catalogue a copy of Images de Toulouse-Lautrec by Irene Brin.
I often saw this collection of lithographic reproductions in a few libraries and museums both in Italy and abroad, but never managed to actually find a copy for myself, so I was amazed to see that this collector's item (n. 391 of 771) was available at a reasonable price (€120, but something like this can easily reach a few hundreds euros) in good conditions.
This blog is inspired by iconic Italian fashion and lifestyle journalist, passion art collector and translator Irene Brin and, in my very first post last year, I briefly wrote about the Rome-based Obelisk gallery opened by Brin and her husband Gaspero Del Corso in 1946.
The art space soon became rather popular since it exhibited innovative works by artists such as Vespignani, Morandi, De Chirico, Balla, Modigliani, Burri, Magritte, Kandinsky, Calder and Bacon.
The gallery was also used as the set for many fashion photo shoots that mixed art and fashion together.
During the early days of The Obelisk, the exhibitions were accompanied only by brochures or foldable posters, but, as the years passed, more consistent catalogues started to be published and, later on, also books.
The volume I found from the Florence-based antiquarian shop is particularly rare as it features the album of eleven lithographs published by Lautrec as “Elles” in 1896, eight lithographs portraying sketches of singer Yvette Guilbert and a lithograph of La Châtelaine and one of Marcelle Lender (both originally published in 1895).
The eight “Elles” lithographs mainly feature life scenes of prostitutes and kept women.
The first lithograph of the “Elles” series shows for example a woman unknotting her hair, her figure almost looking innocent if it weren’t for the top hat in the foreground that reveals the presence of a man, a client.
My favourite image from the entire collection is “La Clownesse Assise (M.lle Cha-U-Ka-O)”.
Cha-U-Ka-O - acrobat, dancer and clown at the Nouveau Cirque and the Moulin Rouge - often appeared in Lautrec’s works.
Her exotic name was actually the phonetic transcription of the French words "chahut" (an acrobatic dance similar to the cancan) and "chaos" directly referred to the uproar she caused when she came on stage.
I love the way her spread-eagled legs (a pose that reveals her sexual power) clad in black tights contrast with her top with the fancy oversized ruffle in yellow, a colour echoed in the ribbon she wears in her hair.
Cha-U-Ka-O seems to have a sort of patient yet sad expression on her face, as if she had been caught quietly pondering about her life.
I think it would be interesting to recreate a fashion photo shoot inspired by Lautrec's “Elles” lithographies, following the main titles and themes ("Femme au plateau", "Femme Couchée", "Le Tub", "La Toilette" and so on).
I guess the clowness Cha-U-Ka-O would look really amazing in Christian Dior’s haute couture designs, don't you think so?


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