Born into a noble family in the south of France, Lautrec was the last of a bloodline who claimed descent from Henry IV of England and blood-relation to Charlemagne, the former Holy Roman Emperor of France. As a result, Lautrec turned to the arts, eventually becoming one of the most important documentarians of late 19 th century in Paris working alongside Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh.
Perhaps his most significant contributions were his original and iconic lithograph posters for various dancehalls throughout Montmartre, and his intimate oil paintings of the working-class prostitutes and the aristocrats who frequented these lively venues.
After numerous discredited diagnostic proposals and without post-humous genetic testing, the current accepted theory proposed by Maroteau and Lamy in is that Lautrec suffered from pycnodysostosis, a rare autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disease of the bone associated with short stature despite normal truncal height, pathologic bone fractures, a hypoplastic mandible, a deformed cranium, and a range of other abnormalities. Vernier was very satisfied with my legs.
When you return, I hope you will find me well. She does come sometimes and I listen to her but lack to courage to look at her, who is so beautiful and tall, and as for myself — I am neither of these. Like Degas, Lautrec focused on the female form and the intimacies of the feminine toilette.
Situated on a hill on the outskirts of Paris, Montmartre began as a rural village dotted with windmills that over the course of the 19 th century was annexed by the city of Paris and became a preeminent working class neighborhood. Using a strong diagonal in the foreground a compositional technique borrowed from Degas , Lautrec creates a physical boundary and an emotional tension between the dancing patrons in the background and the bored working-class women in the foreground.
