The Simpson Chain

Prints and Drawings

1896

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
French, 1864-1901

This poster represents Lautrec’s final design for an advertisement for a bicycle lever chain recently invented by the London manufacturer W. S. Simpson. Competitive cyclist Constant Huret rides a bicycle equipped with the device, speeding on to victory with its help. This poster sports a much more dynamic composition than the artist’s previous attempt, as well as a more realistic depiction of bicycles, despite the four- and five-seaters in the background.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Title: The Simpson Chain
Place: France (Object made in)
Date: Made 1896
Medium: Color brush and spatter lithograph (poster) on tan wove paper with lettering by another hand
Dimensions: 815 × 1,190 mm (image); 852 × 1,230 mm (sheet, sight)
Credit Line: Gift of the Gecht Family
Reference Number: 2015.278
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/180664/manifest.json

The Art Institute of Chicago, Graphic Modernism: Selections from the Francey and Dr. Martin L. Gecht Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago, Nov. 15, 2003 – Jan. 11, 2004, pp. 28–29, cat. 23 (ill.).
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, “Alfred Jarry: The Carnival of Being”, January 24 - May 10, 2020, pp. 59, 62, fig. 49, cat. by Sheelagh Bevan, et. al.

Wittrock P26

Delteil 360

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