At the Moulin Rouge

Painted between 1892 and 1895, At the Moulin Rouge is Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's most ambitious treatment of the famous Parisian dance hall that became the center of his social and artistic world. The canvas, measuring 123 by 141 centimetres, shows a group gathered around a table in the foreground — identifiable figures including the writer Édouard Dujardin, the dancer Jane Avril with her distinctive red hair, and the photographers Paul Sescau and Maurice Guibert. Toulouse-Lautrec himself appears in profile in the background, characteristically small in stature. At the far right, the cropped, green-lit face of the English dancer May Milton floats at the edge of the composition like an apparition, her powdered complexion caught under gaslight.\n\nThe painting has an unusual physical history: at some point the right-hand strip containing May Milton was cut away, perhaps because her unsettling appearance made the work difficult to sell. By 1914 the section had been restored to the canvas. Toulouse-Lautrec's use of extreme cropping, flattened perspective, and harsh artificial light reveals the strong influence of Japanese prints and photography, as well as his unflinching interest in the performers, regulars, and social theater of Montmartre nightlife. The painting entered the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930, where it remains one of the museum's signature works.