Art History Lessons with Lucy J

1) He was born Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa in 1864, to an aristocratic French family

2) His parents were first cousins

3) He put himself into his painting ‘The Moulin Rouge’, and is pictured walking next to his cousin Dr. Tapie de Celyran

4) He fractured his legs at 14, and they stopped growing, meaning as an adult he only stood 4 ft 6 in tall

5) He contracted syphilis from one of his favourite models, a prostitute named Rosa la Rouge

6) His paintings often depict the music halls, circuses, brothels, and cabaret life of Paris

7) He invented a cocktail, a mix of absinthe and cognac, called the ‘Earthquake’

8) Although his paintings were not received well in his lifetime, his painting ‘La blanchisseuse’ sold for 22.4 million dollars in 2005

9) He was an astonishingly productive painter – 1,000 paintings, 5,000 drawings, and 350 prints and posters

10) He died aged only 37