MASP

In Madame la Comtesse Adèle de Toulouse-Lautrec at Malromé’s Garden the garden is probably the one at his family’s Château de Malromé, where he died and where, between 188o and 1882, Toulouse-Lautrec painted at least two more portraits of his mother, Adèle Zoè Tapié de Céleyran (1841-1936), who Camesasca de scribes as coming from the neighboring region of Aude, from a family that can be traced back to the 12th century. The first links between the two families were in the 18th century and a series of labyrinthine intermarriages followed that possibly caused not only the artist’s physical deformity but also some of the family’s quirks. Adèle and Alphonse Charles (1838-1913) separated one year after the birth of their second child. Toulouse-Lautrec spreads the white of the clothing into the bouquets of garden flowers, using luminous vibration in a typically Impressionist way. Unlike the Impressionists, however, he had no interest in nature, except as a color scheme. Also notable amid such chaotic irradiation is the heightened character taken on both by the right angle between the bench and the torso and also by Madame la Comtesse Adèle’s hypnotic, cameo-like profile, giving the pose an archaizing character.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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