Frau, die ihren Strumpf hochzieht

In the early 1890s Toulouse-Lautrec did something few respectable painters would. He moved into the brothels of Paris for weeks at a stretch, living among the women who worked there and drawing them off duty, resting, dressing, doing their hair. This is one of those moments, caught in 1894: a woman bent over, pulling a black stocking up her leg, an everyday gesture nobody was meant to watch. He renders it quickly, in thinned paint, with a few blue strokes marking the line of the legs. There is no scolding in it and no leering either. Beside her, a second woman sits fully dressed in a loose robe.