Fine Art

At the Moulin Rouge — History & Facts

Inside the Moulin Rouge dance hall, a group sits close around a small table at the left: men in top hats and capes, one bearded, and two women, one with her back to us and bright red hair. Behind them a tall man in a top hat walks past a much shorter man, a woman raises her arms to arrange her hair, and another woman stands in profile with her hands on her hips. At the right edge a woman's face, lit green, looks out at us.

A wooden railing cuts across the lower left. The Art Institute says Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec filled the scene with portraits of the dance hall's regulars, including himself: the short figure in the center background, beside his cousin, the physician Gabriel Tapié de Céleyran. It identifies the seated group as La Macarona, Jane Avril, the photographer Paul Sescau, the poet Édouard Dujardin and Maurice Guibert, and La Goulue as the woman arranging her hair. At the right is the scandalous English singer May Milton. At some point the artist or his dealer cut the canvas down to remove her, perhaps because her shocking appearance made it hard to sell; by 1914 the cut section had been reattached.

It is in the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sources: Art Institute of Chicago, record 1928.610 · Wikidata Q3607521 · Wikipedia: At the Moulin Rouge

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