Fanciful ALS in pencil in French, signed “T-Lautrec,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.25 x 7, no date [but June 1895]. Letter to an unidentified correspondent, addressed as “Cher maître.” Translated in full: “It will happen on Saturday. See Sescau to arrange for us to have dinner together, at my home if you want. Put on a white tuxedo and paint your face over—if possible.” In fine condition, with partial separations to top and bottom of the adjoining fold. This letter is published as number 414 in Schimmel’s The Letters of Toulouse Lautrec. The artist reminds his correspondent of a fancy party or ball on Saturday and prepares him for the dress code, white tuxedo and painted face, in any color. He proposes that the two and their common friend, Sescau, have dinner together at his house before the party. P. Sescau was a well-known photographer for whose firm Lautrec made an admired (and now much sought-after) poster. The year, 1895, was a particularly rich creative period for Lautrec, in which he designed some of his most famous ‘affiches’ and painted his celebrated large canvas ‘Au Moulin Rouge,’ now in the Art Institute of Chicago.
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