Marcelle Lender Dancing the Bolero in "Chilpéric"

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

National Gallery of Art

We look slightly down onto a stage, at a woman who dances at the center of this square painting. The pale, white skin on her face is tinged with slate-blue shadows and heightened noticeably with pink blush at the cheekbones. She wears crimson-red lipstick and her dark brown eyebrows are peaked over blue eyes. Two flaring pink flowers, each about the size of the woman’s face, are pinned in the woman’s flame-red hair. The black bodice of her dress has puffed, elbow-length sleeves and a low-cut square neckline. The lime-green skirt flares around her dancing feet to billow up and reveal layers of bubblegum pink underneath. Her body is angled to our left as she points her left, black-stockinged foot and holds her arms by her sides. Behind her, thirteen people dressed in sapphire-blue, ocean-green, and black costumes suggest a royal court, including a dark-haired man who wears a brick-red bolero style suit. He stands near the woman to our right, watching her dance.