Moulin de la Galette (1889): Artwork and History

Moulin de la Galette (1889) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901).

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

With this painting of the dance hall known as the Moulin de la Galette, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec established his reputation as the chronicler of the Montmartre district’s famed nightlife. A wooden barrier bisects the composition, dividing the frenzied action of the dance floor in the background from the stillness of the women waiting in the foreground. Toulouse-Lautrec used turpentine to thin his paint and applied it in loose washes, a technique known as peinture à l’essence. The result is a sketchy style that conveys both the immediacy of the artist’s observations and the tawdry atmosphere of his subject.

Object facts

• Title: Moulin de la Galette
• Date: 1889
• Artist attribution: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864–1901)
• Place of origin: France
• Medium: Oil on canvas
• Dimensions: 88.5 × 101.3 cm (35 7/8 × 39 5/8 in.); Framed: 109.3 × 123.2 × 12.1 cm (43 × 48 1/2 × 4 3/4 in.)
• Type: Painting
• Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe
• Reference number: 1933.458

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection

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The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.