The Two Friends

Painted in 1894 and now at Tate in London, this work depicting two women together belongs to Lautrec's sustained documentation of female friendship and intimacy in the brothel world of 1890s Paris. His unique long-term access to the Rue des Moulins establishment gave him an unparalleled vantage point on women's relationships with one another, away from the male gaze of the cabaret stage. The work belongs to a body of intimate observations that Lautrec himself valued highly and kept largely private, showing a sympathetic engagement with the emotional lives of women in the demi-monde that was rare among his contemporaries.

The two figures are depicted in relaxed, uncontrived proximity that Lautrec renders without theatrical staging. His thin paint technique on pale support gives the scene an almost watercolour transparency, the intimate observation carried by essentialist drawing rather than elaborate colour construction.