En el Moulin de la Galette

In the early 1890s young Catalan painters were leaving Barcelona for Paris to learn the new art, and Ramon Casas was one of them. He was actually living at the Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre, the old windmill turned dance hall, sharing rooms with his friend the painter Santiago Rusinol. The woman here was a real regular of the place, a model named Madeleine. He shows her dressed in red, sitting alone with a drink and a fixed, faraway stare, the bohemian Paris nightlife seen from its tired side rather than its gaiety. He left the picture unfinished. He was in his mid-twenties, and sent it to a Paris independent show that same year.