In a Private Dining Room

The Rat Mort (‘Dead Rat’) was a Parisian café- restaurant in the Montmartre district, frequented by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec in his final years. The woman in fancy dress is thought to be the cocotte (high-class prostitute) Lucy Jourdain. Her laughing mouth and unfocused eyes, aglow in the artificial light, suggest the effects of the champagne in front of her. The streaky brushwork, together with the palette of bold reds and greens and the hallucinatory effect of the lamplight, create a vivid sense of the seedy glamour of Montmartre's nightlife.