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Moulin de la Galette

Artist: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
Date: 1889
Medium: Oil on canvas
Size: 88.5 × 101.3 cm (35 7/8 × 39 5/8 in.); Framed: 109.3 × 123.2 × 12.1 cm (43 × 48 1/2 × 4 3/4 in.)
Made in: France
Style: Post-Impressionism
Where to see it: Art Institute of Chicago

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection · CC0 Public Domain · Art Institute of Chicago · image via Wikimedia Commons · see it at the museum ↗

Notes from the museum

With this painting of the dance hall known as the Moulin de la Galette, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec established his reputation as the chronicler of the Montmartre district’s famed nightlife. A wooden barrier bisects the composition, dividing the frenzied action of the dance floor in the background from the stillness of the women waiting in the foreground. Toulouse-Lautrec used turpentine to thin his paint and applied it in loose washes, a technique known as peinture à l’essence . The result is a sketchy style that conveys both the immediacy of the artist’s observations and the tawdry atmosphere of his subject.

Text: Art Institute of Chicago (open access). Our full story for this work is coming soon.

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About Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

Comte Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Montfa, known as Toulouse-Lautrec, was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator. His immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris's Belle Époque in the late 19th century allowed him to produce popular works of art from decadent affairs.

Painter profile →