Ballet Dancers
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · 1885–86
- Medium
- Oil on plaster, transferred to canvas
- Original size
- 153.5 × 152.5 cm (60 3/8 × 60 in.); Framed: 167.7 × 167.7 cm (66 × 66 in.)
- Currently held
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Movement
- Post-Impressionism
Ballet Dancers captures the restless energy of the rehearsal room with the loose, almost improvisational brushwork that set Toulouse-Lautrec apart from his contemporaries. Painted in 1885–86, when the artist was in his early twenties and still absorbing the lessons of Degas and the Impressionists, it shows a young talent already finding his own voice — less concerned with prettiness than with the truth of bodies in motion. The oil-on-plaster technique, unusual for the period, gives the surface a dry, absorbent quality that softens colour and flattens form in ways a conventional canvas never could. The work was painted directly onto a wall before being transferred to canvas for preservation, a process that accounts for the subtly chalky texture still visible in the original at the Art Institute of Chicago. A hand-painted oil reproduction on canvas brings the warmth and gestural energy of this piece into a domestic space in a way that print reproductions simply cannot — each brushstroke rebuilt by hand, the muted palette and characteristic looseness faithfully interpreted rather than mechanically copied.
Hand-painted oil reproduction
Painted in real oil on stretched canvas by master copyists. Delivered unframed — ready to frame at home.
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In Toulouse-Lautrec's style.
Send us a photograph of your family, pet, or home — we'll paint it as a custom oil on stretched canvas in any style you like. From £220.
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