At the Circus: The Bareback Rider (Au Cirque: Écuyère)1888
One of Toulouse-Lautrec’s favorite haunts was the Cirque Fernando, also the subject of his large painting, Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando) . More about this work
About this work
One of Toulouse-Lautrec’s favorite haunts was the Cirque Fernando, also the subject of his large painting, Equestrienne (At the Cirque Fernando) . Like many of the artists in his circle, Toulouse-Lautrec experimented with styles and materials beyond easel painting. His decision to paint on a tambourine with little castanets was perhaps inspired by the instrument’s association with bohemian life and creative freedom.
Text from the Art Institute of Chicago.
What you’re looking at
A work made of oil on vellum.
Description from the Art Institute of Chicago.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
French, 1864–1901 · Born in Albi; died in Saint-André-du-Bois.
Toulouse-Lautrec came from an aristocratic family in Albi; after two leg fractures in his teens his legs stopped growing, and he turned to art. Trained in Paris under Léon Bonnat and Fernand Cormon, he settled in Montmartre and recorded its dance halls, cabarets, circuses and brothels with quick, incisive line. His colour lithograph posters for the Moulin Rouge and its performers transformed the street poster. He died at the family’s Château de Malromé at the age of thirty-six.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Post-Impressionism
Artists who kept Impressionism's colour but pushed towards structure, symbol and feeling.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Art Institute of Chicago has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 2010.413
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
- Type
- Painting
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
