His younger brother was born in , but died the following year. Both sons enjoyed the titres de courtoisie of Comte [4] and had Henri outlived his father, he would have been accorded the family title of Comte de Toulouse-Lautrec. The family quickly realized that his talents lay in drawing and painting.
Some of Toulouse-Lautrec's early paintings are of horses, a speciality of Princeteau, and a subject Lautrec revisited in his "Circus Paintings". Toulouse paints Mr. Lautrec ca. At 14, he fractured his left. Modern physicians attribute this to an unknown genetic disorder , possibly pycnodysostosis sometimes known as Toulouse-Lautrec Syndrome , [10] or a variant disorder along the lines of osteopetrosis , achondroplasia , or osteogenesis imperfecta. Afterwards, his legs ceased to grow, so that as an adult he was extremely short 1.
He became an important Post-Impressionist painter, art nouveau illustrator, and lithographer , and, through his works, recorded many details of the lateth-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. Toulouse-Lautrec contributed a number of illustrations to the magazine Le Rire during the mids. He moved to Paris in Studying with Bonnat placed Toulouse-Lautrec in the heart of Montmartre, an area he rarely left over the next 20 years.
After Bonnat took a new job, Toulouse-Lautrec moved to the studio of Fernand Cormon in and studied for a further five years and established the group of friends he kept for the rest of his life. Cormon, whose instruction was more relaxed than Bonnat's, allowed his pupils to roam Paris, looking for subjects to paint. During this period, Toulouse-Lautrec had his first encounter with a prostitute reputedly sponsored by his friends , which led him to paint his first painting of a prostitute in Montmartre, a woman rumoured to be Marie-Charlet.
He made several portraits of her and supported her ambition as an artist. It is believed that they were lovers and that she wanted to marry him.
