Yvette Guilbert Singing

Looking out at her audience with a serene half-smile, the cabaret singer Yvette Guilbert is gently lit from below by the stage footlights. A bonafide star, she performed at venues throughout Paris, including the Moulin Rouge. In his drawing, d’Espagnat eschews the dazzling lights and spectacle of a large performance in favor of a more intimate view of the singer in her signature long black gloves. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec portrayed Gilbert again and again, publishing a book of sixteen portrait lithographs in 1894.