'Moulin Rouge, La Goulue', a poster by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, estimated $60,000-80,000 at Auctions at Showplace.
Printed in 1891, two years after the bawdy Moulin Rouge nightclub had opened on the boulevard de Clichy in Montmartre, he chose as his subject its star performers, Valentin le Désossé (Jacques Renaudi), the ‘boneless’ acrobat, and dancer Louise Weber whose cancan skirts were lifted at the finale of the chahut.
Known as La Goulue (the glutton), she took her stage-name from her habit of draining patrons’ drinks in one go while she danced among the tables.
At the time of poster mania in Paris, the 6ft 2in (1.85m) four-colour lithographic poster was probably printed in a run of around 3000 but relatively few have survived.
This copy on two sheets of wove paper glued to board has a guide of $60,000-80,000 as part of a 280-lot sale at Auctions at Showplace in New York on May 5. It comes from a Park Avenue collection.
