In bed - the kiss

Painted in 1892, this intimate scene of two women sharing a bed reflects Lautrec's extended engagement with the domestic and intimate life of women in Paris's brothels and demi-monde. From 1892 he was granted unusual access to the licensed brothels of Paris, living among the women and documenting their lives with frank sympathy rather than prurience. The series of works depicting women in bed, dressing, or sharing intimate moments drew on Japanese woodblock prints — particularly Utamaro's images of women's domestic privacy — in its compositional flatness and uninhibited subject matter. Lautrec's brothel works were deliberately kept private and shown selectively.

The composition is radically cropped and flattened in the manner of Japanese prints, with the bed covering and figures resolved into bold interlocking shapes of colour. The intimate scene is rendered without sentimentality or erotic display, the close observation of ordinary human proximity reflecting Lautrec's genuine documentary interest.