The Woman with Gloves

The woman's name has come down as Honorine Platzer, and little more is recorded about her. Toulouse-Lautrec painted her in 1890, seated outdoors in profile under a vast hat, her gloved hand closed around the handle of a parasol and the other glove lying in her lap. The garden behind her is quick strokes of green and rust, and in places the bare cardboard shows through the paint. Its first known owner was Olivier Sainsère, a lawyer and senior official of the Third Republic who became secretary general of the French president's office. He bought modern painters early, from Seurat and Bonnard to Toulouse-Lautrec, and later was one of the first buyers of Picasso. The picture was shown at a Lautrec retrospective in Paris in 1914, and in 1953 the Société des Amis du Louvre, the Louvre's friends' association, gave it to the national museums.