Marcelle Lender (1862-1926) was a French singer-dancer and entertainer made famous in paintings by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Lender by Lautrec
Born Anne-Marie Marcelle Bastien, she began dancing at the age of 16 and within a few years made a name for herself performing at the Théâtre des Variétés in Montmartre.
Marcelle Lender appears in several works by Lautrec but the most notable is the one of her dancing the Bolero during her February 1895 performance in the Florimond Hervé operetta "Chilpéric." Lautrec's portrait of her in full costume, her flame-red hair accentuated by two red poppies worn like plumes, boosted Lender's popularity considerably after it appeared in a Paris magazine. The painting was eventually sold to a collector from the United States and on her passing in 1998 the painting's then owner, American Betsey Cushing Whitney, donated it to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..
The color scheme is opulent, setting Lender's mass of red-orange hair against the pink and red of her flower headdress and the yellow pattern in the background, and emphasizing the white expanse of her cheeks and bosom, lighted from below, with a fine re d outline describing her lips and profile.
Lender starred in Fortunio with Numa Auguez, and Lautrec evinced his continuing admiration for the actress in the lithograph Lender and Auguez in "La Chanson de Fortunio." 25 The artist's use of white is especially remarkable here, silhouetting Auguez against the shadowed Lender.
Lender's appearance, too, is a p arody, with her eyebrows soulfully lifted in feigned yearning as she performs the bolero.
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