Café Dancer
Brooklyn Museum photograph
Object Label
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.
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) frame: 32 × 26 × 4 5/8 in. (81.3 × 66 × 11.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr., 1992.107.37. © artist or artist's estate. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
Café Dancer
Date
1894–1895
Geography
Place made: France
Medium
Oil on graphite over laid paper mounted to canvas
Classification
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)
Signatures
Signed lower left: "L.V" (underscored)
Credit Line
Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr.
Accession Number
1992.107.37
Rights
© artist or artist's estate
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