Carmen

Painted in 1884 and now at the Clark Art Institute, this work titled Carmen depicts a young woman who may be a model from Lautrec's Montmartre circle during his studio years under Cormon. The Carmen title may evoke Bizet's celebrated opera of 1875 — the Spanish gypsy heroine was an iconic figure of the period — or simply denote a Spanish or French woman of that name. By 1884 Lautrec was working in Montmartre, absorbing the bohemian world around him while still pursuing formal academic training. Female portrait subjects from this transitional period show him developing his characteristic economy of characterisation.

The portrait of Carmen shows Lautrec's developing ability to capture female presence and character in direct, unsentimental terms. The figure is observed without the softening effects of academic flattery, her specific physical features and expression rendered with the searching honesty that would define his mature portraiture.