Woman Smoking a Cigarette

Around 1890 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced a number of works depicting the interior, domestic spaces of working-class women in the neighborhood of Montmartre. Best known for his portrayal of sex workers and cabaret performers, Toulouse-Lautrec here chose to leave the sitter’s identity anonymous and her location unknown, although the washbasin and cigarette suggest a cheap room and a proletarian station in life. The figure comes vividly alive, however, in graphic brushstrokes and contrasting colors, with her angular face at once inscrutable and specifically rendered.