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Around 1892 Toulouse-Lautrec was spending long stretches inside the licensed brothels of Paris, not as a client so much as a resident observer. The women there seem to have accepted him and let him watch their ordinary hours. Out of that came a small group of pictures of two women together in bed, and this is one of them. The moment is a kiss under the covers, faces close, the bedclothes a rush of loose pink and white brushwork. He painted it without turning it into a display for onlookers, which was unusual for the subject at the time. Lautrec was in his late twenties, already the sharpest poster designer in Montmartre, and these bed scenes stayed largely private.