Portrait of Toulouse Lautrec, in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, with the Natansons
Toulouse-Lautrec Cooking
Artist	Édouard Vuillard
Year	1898
Medium	oil paint, cardboard
Dimensions	39 cm (15 in) × 30 cm (12 in)
Location	Musée Toulouse-Lautrec
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Portrait of Toulouse Lautrec, in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, with the Natansons, sometimes referred to as Toulouse-Lautrec Cooking, is an 1898 painting by French artist Édouard Vuillard. The work depicts fellow artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec on holiday cooking in the kitchen at Les Relais, the country home of Vuillard's patron Thadée Natanson in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. The painting is held by the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec.^[1]

In the 1890s, French artist Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940) actively produced work while on holiday in the French countryside, known as his villégiature period. The villégiature, or holiday, typically involved Parisians like Vuillard leaving the city in the summer and taking vacation in the countryside with close friends and family, but unlike a tourist vacation involving activities made famous by the work of an artist like Claude Monet, the type of paintings Vuillard made during a villégiature were characterized by rest, tranquility, and the absence of novelty, focusing on the customary, allowing Vuillard to produce many landscapes and interiors in the countryside.^[2]

In 1891, playwright and writer Pierre Veber (1869–1942) introduced Vuillard to his patron Thadée Natanson, who along with his brother Alfred, ran La Revue Blanche, the leading art and literary magazine of its time.^[3] That same year, Vuillard began exhibiting his work at the offices of the magazine, attracting the attention of the avant-garde and critical approval.^[4] In 1893, Thadée Natanson married Misia Godebska (1872–1950), and together they extended the reach of the magazine into a salon in their various homes, which Vuillard would document in his own work (Salon Natanson, 1897). With Vuillard and Lautrec as regular guests, the Natanson's circle included Pierre Bonnard, Felix Vallotton, and the post-Impressionists known as the Nabis.^[5]

Vuillard and fellow artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) first met each other sometime in the early 1890s due to their association with La Revue Blanche,^[6] with Lautrec first contributing artwork to the magazine in 1894.^[7] That same year, Vuillard received a decorative arts commission from Alexandre Natanson for installation in his home, requiring him to produce nine panels of scenes depicting French parks.^[4] By 1896, Vuillard and Lautrec both began making visits to the Natanson's La Grangette estate in Valvins. The next year, the Natansons rented Les Relais, a country estate in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where Vuillard and Lautrec continued their previous villégiature tradition from La Grangette. Misia, Thadée's young wife, was said to have been Vuillard's muse, a subject for many of his works, and a love that was unrequited and never consummated.^[2] Lautrec was also fond of Misia and showed her great affection, and painted her frequently along with Vuillard.^[7]

Lautrec is depicted in a rare state of sobriety, having temporarily given up drinking during a brief vacation to devote himself to cooking at Les Relais, the country home of the Natansons.^[1] His clothing, complete with a grey felt hat,^[8] yellow oilskin rain pants, red shirt and kerchief,^[9] appears to be rain gear, as a large storm occurred on the day of the painting.^[1] In the painting, Lautrec appears to be cooking a lobster dish, possibly homard à l'américaine.^[8] Within the Natanson household, Lautrec was remembered for preparing lobster in the kitchen at Les Relais.^[1] As a huge fan of seafood, lobster was said to have been Lautrec's favorite dish.^[7]

The Natansons attempted to help Lautrec address his visible and ongoing struggle with alcoholism by providing a non-drinking environment for him at Les Relais for convalescence.^[9] There are reports of Lautrec going through alcohol withdrawal at Les Relais, with his behavior displaying signs of delirium tremens. In one reported incident, Lautrec experienced hallucinations causing him to see spiders crawling inside the Natanson's house. Responding to what he thought was an arachnid attack, Lautrec discharged his firearm in self-defense.^[10]

Like Claude Monet, Lautrec was known for his visual artistry and for his cooking. Culinary historian Alexandra Leaf highlights Monet and Lautrec as the two "most serious gourmets" among their peers. Lautrec's love for cooking stemmed from his family upbringing and early childhood where he first learned the importance of culinary values.^[11]

These values would eventually lead to Lautrec combining the visual and culinary arts together, usually as a formal celebration of the release of new artworks, resulting in the most legendary parties for which he designed the menu (which were often artworks in themselves), bought and prepared the food, and created and often invented entirely new cocktails. Lautrec's most famous party, held at the Natanson's Parisian house in February 1895, is often regarded as one of the most notorious parties in art history. 300 guests were invited, with 2,000 cocktails claiming to have been served, all accompanied by side dishes of gourmet food, with Lautrec working diligently as the sole chef and bartender, dressed in a white linen jacket, complete with a freshly shaved bald head and no beard. Ironically, by the end of the night, Lautrec appeared to be the only one still awake and sober.^[12][11]

Lautrec was part of a group of gourmands, initially formed by Gustave Geffroy (1855–1926), the historian of the Impressionists, and Claude Monet, who met up every Friday night for dinner at Drouant, a restaurant in the Palais Garnier neighborhood.^[8] After Lautrec's death, his close friend Maurice Joyant published Lautrec's collection of recipes in the book La Cuisine de Monsieur Momo, Célibataire (1930), along with a color book frontispiece of Toulouse Lautrec Cooking by Vuillard.^[8] It was revised in 1966 as L'art de la cuisine. The cookbook features 150 recipes, many of which were Lautrec's signature dishes, such as "Catalan salad". Art historian Charles Stuckey describes it as the the first cookbook ever published by an artist, albeit posthumously.^[13]

Art historians believe Vuillard's Toulouse-Lautrec Cooking was influenced by the work of Diego Velázquez (1599–1660), particularly his series of portrait work featuring people with dwarfism; the seventeenth century genre painting of the Bamboccianti, characterized by everyday peasant subjects such as people preparing food; and the work of French realist Théodule Ribot (1823–1891), who was known for painting kitchens and cooks.^[1]

• 
  Portrait of Sebastián de Morra (1644) by Diego Velázquez
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  Kitchen Interior (ca. 1650-1670) by Thomas Wyck
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  The Cook and the Cat (n.d.) by Théodule Ribot

The painting was donated by Lautrec's close friend and art dealer Maurice Joyant (1864-1930) to the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec in 1914 and first exhibited in 1931.^[1] The title is often shortened to Toulouse-Loutrec Cooking in the literature.^[14]

• 
  Vallotton at the Natanson's (1897) by Édouard Vuillard
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  Misia in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne (1898) by Édouard Vuillard
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  Profile of Toulouse-Lautrec (1898) by Édouard Vuillard
• 
  Misia and Vallotton at Villeneuve (1899) by Édouard Vuillard