Madame Abdala, from "Le Café Concert"
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec French
Printer Edward Ancourt French
Publisher l'Estampe Originale French
Not on view
This print, from a portfolio entitled Le Café-Concert, depicts Madame Abdala, a regular performer at the Scala nightclub in Paris. Wearing a shapeless tent dress and a long braid, she faces the audience with the curtain behind her. The harsh footlights accentuate her scraggy features and inelegant profile. According to the writer Georges Montorgueil, Abdala deliberately distorted her face while performing for comic effect: "She does all the things that nasty little girls who stick out their tongues, squint, make faces, and goggle their eyes can think of . . . She takes great pains to make herself ugly."
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