Jane Avril Saindo do Moulin Rouge

By 1892 the Moulin Rouge had been open for three years and Montmartre was the loud, gaslit centre of Paris nightlife. Toulouse-Lautrec was there most evenings, and the woman here was one of the reasons. Jane Avril was a star dancer at the club, and also his close friend, one of the few who stayed loyal to him until his early death. He shows her walking away from the stage, wrapped against the cold, her face turned inward and unaware of the passers-by. He worked quickly, in thinned oils on a sheet of board. Her collar is up, her eyes are down, and her thoughts are somewhere well beyond the dance hall she has just left.