A letto - il bacio

In the early 1890s Toulouse-Lautrec more or less moved into the licensed brothels of Paris, staying for days at a time, eating with the women and drawing them off duty. This is one of several small canvases he made of couples in bed together, two women in a moment entirely their own, not performing for anyone. Space was short in those houses and beds were shared, and closeness like this grew up in them. What is unusual for the time is the absence of a wink or a moral. He lights the pair in warm reds and yellows and lets the greys fall back around them, so the kiss reads as ordinary and private, caught by someone the women had long stopped noticing.