Messalina Descends the Stairs Lined by Female Figures
1900-01
Oil on canvas, 100 x 73 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
The sick Lautrec spent the winter of 1900/1901 in Bordeaux, where he visited the Grand Théâtre and painted scenes from Isidore de Lara's opera "Messaline" and Jacques Offenbach's operetta "La Belle Hélène." In the last days of 1900 he painted six pictures in rapid succession.
