Under Toulouse-Lautrec’s influence, Valtat’s own works darkened both in colour and sentiment: gaunt or severe-looking women seated in murky cafés, like the one seen here, become constant players in his painting, and the inebriated slightly starry-eyed woman seen in the present work (on paper so perhaps painted in situ) shows with a truthful eye the reality of the circumstances of women who found themselves in the Moulin Rouge surrounded by such painters, bohemians and bon vivants.