A peculiar romantic story surrounds the creation of the picture “Passenger of the 54th”. Lautrec, in the company of his friend, Ghibera, wishing to visit the southwest of France, decided to take advantage of the steamer to travel to the port of Bordeaux. The steamship, owned by Worms, followed the port of Dakar. In Le Havre, where the companions boarded the ship, Lautrec took with him a considerable supply of provisions, of course, alcohol was also well-stocked. All the way, the restless cheerful man treated the crew of the ship with dishes, over which he worked with enviable zeal.
Travel time, spiced up with a lot of alcohol and eating delicacies, flew by unnoticed, and only after arriving in Bordeaux, Lautrec noticed that among a small number of passengers, there is a woman endowed with natural grace and charming appearance. She was the wife of an official who held a post in one of the colonial countries. She followed her husband to Senegal, and did not pay attention to fellow travelers. The neznakomka occupied the cabin under the 54th number. Plans Lautrec immediately changed, in Bordeaux they did not come down, and Gibera had difficulty managing to dissuade his comrade to go to Lisbon, although the eccentric artist tried to swim with a stranger to the end of the world. Directly on the deck, the lyrical impulse of the artist who was carried away was embodied on paper.
The creation of this lithography dates back to 1896, the journey took place in the summer months, but the woman from the 54th cabin was already portrayed by Lautrec on the poster exhibited in Brussels in “Free Aesthetics” in February of this year, therefore the official date of its creation may differ from the real one.
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