Conquête de passage

Painted in 1896 and now at the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, this work from Lautrec's native city's collection depicts a scene of social encounter — the 'conquête de passage' title suggesting a fleeting romantic or sexual conquest in a public setting. Toulouse is Lautrec's birthplace and the location of the noble family château, making the Augustins museum a kind of homecoming for his work. By 1896 Lautrec was at the height of his mature output, producing oils, lithographs, and posters with remarkable facility while his health was already beginning to deteriorate.

The social encounter scene is rendered with Lautrec's characteristic condensation of psychological observation into economical form — the attitudes of the figures towards one another conveying the social dynamics of the fleeting encounter with minimal elaboration of setting. The thin oil technique on pale support maintains transparency and directness.