Lautrec passionately admired Cha-U-Kao, a nude dancer, acrobat and clown, who pretended to be Japanese. He painted numerous pictures of her in all kinds of costumes, instigating various special fancy-dress events at the Moulin Rouge for this purpose.
In this lithograph, Toulouse-Lautrec generally repeats his painting of the clown Cha-U-Kao executed two years before. But in turning his hand to the graphic technique, he simplified colour relations, drew his lines more sharply, and thus achieved a precise compositional rhythm that is set by the thoroughly Japanese grille on the windows, a feature that is barely discernible in the painting.
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