La Blanchisseuse

In the Montmartre of the late 1880s the laundresses were a fixture of working Paris, hauling and pressing other people's linen for long hours and little money. The young woman here, leaning on the table and staring out the window, was Carmen Gaudin, who did that work for a living and modelled on the side for Toulouse-Lautrec and other painters. He had noticed her in the street for her red hair and worn look, and used her again and again. There is no sentiment in it. She is caught in a pause, tired but alert, the light catching her face and the rough cloth under her hands. Long kept in storage, the picture sold in 2005 for about 22 million dollars.