french-posters

Born in Ireland, May Belfort made a name for herself on the stages of Parisian
nightclubs with her suggestive songs. One such musical double entendre was a
song called “Daddy Wouldn’t Buy Me a Bow Wow.” She typically appeared on
stage dressed in an English infant’s frock and holding her ever-present black cat,
as depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec in this 1895 promotional poster. Her lover, May
Milton, was also a performer who likewise commissioned Toulouse-Lautrec’s
artistic genius in creating posters to promote her performances. Four separate
lithographic stones and crachis, or spattered ink, were used to realize the finished
composition in this poster of May Belfort.