Little Dancer of Fourteen Years
The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer (French: "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans") is a sculpture begun c. 1880 by Edgar Degas of a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, a Belgian named Marie van Goethem.
Maxime Dethomas
Lautrec featured Dethomas in his art with some frequency. On April 6, 1895, the former "Moulin Rouge" dancer Louise 'La Goulue' Weber commissioned two large canvases to adorn her travelling show's tent. Dethomas appears on the left-hand panel, with his back turned to the viewer. At around the same period, Toulouse-Lautrec declared "I will capture your immobility in places of pleasure", and over the course of one and a half years, he made numerous preparatory sketches of Dethomas intended for a single painting, each taking anywhere from five to fifteen minutes to create. Completed in 1896, the famous portrait of "Maxime Dethomas at the Bal de l'Opera" now hangs in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.. Another portrait of his friend took the form of a risque lithograph entitled "Debauche Avec Dethomas", and was later used on the cover of an exhibition catalogue of June, 1896. Finally, an 1896 lithograph entitled "Anna Held et Baldy" also features Dethomas, leering provocatively at the famous stage performer. Toulouse-Lautrec gifted a copy of this lithograph to Dethomas, which he retained until his death. During the final years of Toulouse-Lautrec's descent into full-blown alcoholism, Dethomas would rarely leave his side, often escorting him to his Montmartre home at the end of long drinking sessions. Toulouse-Lautrec's final convalescence at Madrid-les-Bains and Bordeaux in the months leading up to his death, prompted Dethomas to make one last journey for his old friend, their friendship lasting until the very end.