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Café Dancer

Louis Valtat

European Art

By the late nineteenth century, Parisian café concerts and dance halls, many in the bohemian neighborhood of Montmartre, had become carnival-like spaces of spectacle and sexual freedom, particularly for bourgeois male patrons. Louis Valtat’s vivid painting depicts one of the many working-class women who found employment in such venues performing the risqué, high-kicking dance known as the cancan, or chahut. She entertains a crowd of men in top hats, seen in the background.
MEDIUM Oil on graphite over laid paper mounted to canvas
  • Place Made: France
  • DATES 1894-1895
    DIMENSIONS 24 1/8 × 18 1/8 in. (61.3 × 46 cm) frame: 32 × 26 × 4 5/8 in. (81.3 × 66 × 11.7 cm)  (show scale)
    SIGNATURE Signed lower left: "L.V" (underscored)
    COLLECTIONS European Art
    ACCESSION NUMBER 1992.107.37
    CREDIT LINE Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr.
    MUSEUM LOCATION This item is not on view
    CAPTION Louis Valtat (French, 1869-1952). Café Dancer, 1894-1895. Oil on graphite over laid paper mounted to canvas, 24 1/8 × 18 1/8 in. (61.3 × 46 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr., 1992.107.37. © artist or artist's estate (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 1992.107.37_SL3.jpg)
    IMAGE overall, 1992.107.37_SL3.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph
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