Ball at the Moulin de la Galette

Lautrec often visited the Moulin de la Galette and painted a number of pictures there. The venue was popular both with the poorer sections of Montmartre and with the artists and bohemians. Markedly erotic and therefore offensive to respectable society were the evening dances, which brought out the police - visible in the right-hand background of the picture. In the right foreground is the picture’s original owner, the landscape painter and friend of Lautrec, Joseph Albert (c. 1865-1928).