Nel salone di rue des Moulins

Toulouse-Lautrec painted this in 1894, and he knew the place from the inside. For stretches he actually lodged in the licensed brothels of Paris, and this one, on the rue des Moulins, he treated almost as a studio. The picture is his largest on the subject. Five women sit around a red plush salon in the dead hours, not performing for anyone, just waiting, bored, half-dressed. Off to the right a woman lifts her slip, a detail that tells a knowing viewer they are queuing for the compulsory medical inspection. Lautrec paints all this without a shred of moralising or leering, the way he might record any other room he happened to be living in.