Collector's lithograph on handmade cotton paper, 64 x 48 cm (inside the mat), framed in a frame measuring 83 x 66 cm;
limited edition, numbered in pencil 25/275, "TL" monogram in the lower left corner, dry stamp featuring the artist’s monogram (intertwined letters "TL") and the inscription "Musée Toulouse-Lautrec" in the border;
Publisher: Librairie Gründ under the supervision and with the authorization of the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in Albi; Lithographed at the legendary Mourlot Frères studio in Paris (under the supervision of master lithographers such as André Thiry).
A unique work of graphic art by one of the most outstanding masters of French Post-Impressionism and lithography— Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
In 1895, the Parisian publishing house Boussod, Valadon et Cie announced a competition for an advertising poster for a new, multi-volume biography of Napoleon Bonaparte (by William Milligan Sloane), which was to be published in the American magazine *The Century Magazine*. Lautrec’s design took third place in the competition (Lucien Métivet won). Lautrec, however, was so pleased with his work that he decided to publish it at his own expense as an independent art lithograph (without any advertising text). It depicts a young Napoleon on a white horse, surrounded by his guard—in the background, one can see, among others, a Mameluke on a black horse and an officer wearing distinctive headgear.
The first edition was financed by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec himself (he published it in a limited run of just 100 numbered pieces for collectors).
This work is from the second edition of 1948, published under the supervision of the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec.
