Toulouse-lautrec syndrome
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901)
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, more commonly known as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, was born November 24, 1864. He was the first born son of Count Alphonse and Countess Adele de Toulouse-Lautrec; the count and countess were first cousins from a wealthy family. Due to the inbreeding of his parents, Henri suffered from a brittle bone disease among other ailments. He broke his right leg at the age of thirteen and his left leg at the age of fourteen. After these major breaks, his legs stopped growing, but his torso continued to mature into that of a grown man.
As odd as his physical appearance was, his disability was possibly the reason he became an artist. Unable to participate in the same activities as his better abled peers, Toulouse-Lautrec studied art and became a talented painter, illustrator, and print maker. He is best known for his depictions in the French night life. He lived and painted in the local brothels, attended theatre performances at the cabaret, and frequented the local bars. The people he met at the
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The Outsider Aristocrat
Lautrec was born Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa, a descendent of one of the oldest and most prestigious French families, on an estate in Albi in southern France. He was his parents’ first child and came from generations of counts and viscounts, but would nonetheless live the life of an outcast as a dwarf. Between the ages of 13 and 14, he broke each of his legs in turn. Neither fully healed and the legs ceased growing, presumably because of a genetic disorder caused by inbreeding in his aristocratic family—his parents were first cousins. Lautrec therefore grew into adulthood with the foreshortened legs of a child below a normal-sized torso. He stood at 4 feet, 8 inches tall, and used a cane to walk with difficulty for the rest of his life.
Photograph of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at approximately age 3.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in 1894, at the age of 30.
Mocked for his physical appearance and prevented from participating in the sports and outdoors activities appropriate for a boy of his backgroun
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Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
French painter and illustrator (1864–1901)
Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), known as Toulouse-Lautrec (French:[tuluzlotʁɛk]), was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the sometimes decadent affairs of those times.
Born into the aristocracy, Toulouse-Lautrec broke both his legs around the time of his adolescence and, possibly due to the rare condition pycnodysostosis, was very short as an adult due to his undersized legs. In addition to alcoholism, he developed an affinity for brothels and prostitutes that directed the subject matter for many of his works, which record details of the late-19th-century bohemian lifestyle in Paris. He is among the painters described as being Post-Impressionists, with Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Georges Seurat also comm
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