En el Moulin Rouge: dos mujeres bailando el vals

The Moulin Rouge opened in 1889 and Toulouse-Lautrec was there almost from the start, sketching the dancers on scraps of cardboard he could carry in a pocket. Here two women waltz together on the floor, an everyday sight at the hall, where women often partnered each other between numbers. One of them is thought to be Cha-U-Kao, a clown and dancer he painted often, caught this time out of her stage costume in plain street clothes. Behind the couple, in a red dress and hat, stands Jane Avril, the star whose long legs he would soon put on his posters. He painted the whole thing thinly on brown board, letting it show through as the colour of the floor.