Jane Avril was a friend of Toulouse-Lautrec and asked him to create this poster to advertise her cabaret show. It was painted in 1893.

Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa , 1864 - 1901, was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, caricaturist, and illustrator whose immersion in the colorful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant, and provocative images of the modern, sometimes decadent, affairs of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec is among the best-known painters of the Post-Impressionist period, with Paul Įթzanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin.