Aux Moulin Rouge (La Goulue et Sa Soeur)

The famous nightclub the Moulin Rouge (Red Windmill) embodied the less respectable aspects of modern culture in 1890s Paris. However, this gathering place of the working class, prostitutes, artists, novelists, and anarchists also lured the affluent classes (note the top-hatted gentlemen in the background). The Moulin Rouge’s star attraction Louise Weber (1866–1929), a can-can dancer nicknamed La Goulou (The Glutton) because she would take male customers’ glasses as she twirled by their tables and quickly drink the contents. In his many depictions of her, Lautrec consistently emphasized her most recognizable features—topknot, black ribbon choker, and back-exposing dress—so that she is instantly recognizable, even, as here, from behind. In this print Lautrec shows her with her sister Jeanne, seemingly surveying her domain. Lautrec’s images of Paris’s entertainers, with their strong outlines, flat colors, cropped compositions, and often unflattering characterizations, created an immediate sensation. He showed a savvy understanding of the power of celebrity and the ways that “high” and “low” culture increasingly intersected in modern Paris.