Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

National Gallery of Art

A man and woman standing with their backs to us face a room where others stand or pose in this vertical painting. Though made with oil on cardboard, the paint is applied loosely with visible strokes so the painting looks more like a pastel drawing. The people have peach-colored or mint-green skin. Cut off by the left edge of the painting, the man wears a black top hat and suit. We only see the short blond hair behind one ear and the jutting cheekbone and jaw of his profile. The woman takes up almost the left half of the picture. She wears a flat, brown coat outlined in royal blue, a fur stole around her neck, and a blue hat with flowers. Her brown hair is pulled up, and she looks to our right in profile with pale, nearly ash-white skin. Across from the couple, to our right and farther into the room, a woman wearing a teal-green dress stands with her feet planted wide so her feet flare out and her hands on her hips. Her body is squared toward the couple, and she looks off to our left. A black hat perches on her yellow hair, which is piled atop her head. She cocks one eyebrow over green eyes, and her lips curl in a lopsided sneer over a double chin. A tawny-brown corset under her bust cinches her waist. She gathers the skirt in fistfuls with each hand to reveal white petticoats and black boots or shoes. Two more people stand facing away from us behind her and to our left. Seen between the first pair and this woman, the man here also wears a black top hat and suit, and he has orange hair. The woman has brown hair. Her bodice is vivid pink, and the skirt is dark brown. An arc of white from the hem of her skirt up to her head suggests she has flung that side of the skirt up. Another woman’s face cast with green is tucked between the heads of the first couple. That woman looks off to our left under lifted brows with a drooping mouth. The two couples face a structure with columns supporting a roof, probably a bandstand, in the upper right quadrant of the composition. The ground in the lower half of the picture is streaked with sable brown and olive green. The rest of the background behind the bandstand is filled with sea green against the brown board on which this was painted. An indistinct red mark in the lower right corner has the artist’s initials intertwined, “HTL.”