Identity and interpretation: receptions of Toulouse-Lautrec's Reine de joie poster in the 1890s

This essay analyzes the critical reception of Toulouse-Lautrec's poster, Reine de joie, which depicts a Jewish banker in the arms of a courtesan. Comparing a review by Thadée Natanson, an assimilated Jew, with the writings of other French critics, it demonstrates how commentaries on works of art, even when made in the same historical moment, are bound up in questions of identity.