Au Cirque: Travail de tapis

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Colored crayons on paper

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Au Cirque: Travail de tapis (Work on the Mat) belongs to the celebrated series of thirty-nine colored crayon drawings Toulouse-Lautrec produced in 1899 while confined to a sanitarium in Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he was being treated for alcoholism. Working entirely from memory, he recalled acrobatic rehearsal scenes from the Cirque Fernando, Cirque Molier, and Nouveau Cirque, depicting performers training before empty stands — in this case, floor acrobats engaged in mat work, the foundational discipline of ground-level acrobatics. Toulouse-Lautrec rendered these scenes with swift, expressive line and a palette of melancholic yet vivid hues, capturing the physicality and intimacy of circus rehearsal rather than its public spectacle. The series, posthumously published in the portfolio Au Cirque by Maison Goupil in 1905, stands as one of the most remarkable achievements of his draughtsmanship and a defining document of Post-Impressionist drawing.