Moulin de la Galette
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
1889
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 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.)
- Culture
- France
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
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.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
