A lot of people disliked May Milton, a dancer featured in this lithograph by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (the IMA website reports she was “short on talent and physical beauty”…ouch).
Fortunately for May, however, a private collector in Indiana inherited this particular lithograph in 1978. (Note: a lithograph is a painting made on a flat limestone surface…there’s a lot of ink-and-water-repelling-positive-and-negative-space-type conversations to have, but all you really need to know is paint’s repelled throughout the surface and makes a print, and water clears the rest.)
Anyway, the print that you see here is a version of one featured in Picasso’s “The Blue Room” from 1901. This one has since been restored and is in private hands. Lucky bastards. Like, I can barely justify flights to my best friend’s wedding, and these people are just waving money and Lautrec work around like it’s nothing.
arthipstory 