Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 'The Two Friends', 1894

Two women sit together, looking uncomfortable on a sofa. One reaches round, trying to comfort the other, who shrinks back into her shawl. The painting cuts off the women’s knees at the edge, and an empty sofa fills the bottom of the picture.

This unusual viewpoint makes the scene feel spontaneous and real. Toulouse-Lautrec added to this feeling with his hasty painting style. He drew long blue brushstrokes for the main outlines and you can see where he changed his mind. He tried several times to find the right line, but didn’t hide his mistakes. He blocked in colours very roughly on the women’s clothing, sometimes painting outside his first outlines. The women wear matching dresses, which seems strange. Perhaps he was working so fast that he did not have time to mix different colours for their clothing.

This painting belongs to a series of scenes set inside Parisian brothels that Toulouse-Lautrec made between 1892 and 1895. He felt comfortable in these surroundings. He once said, ‘I have found [here] girls of my own size! Nowhere else do I feel so much at home.’ His fellow artist, Édouard Vuillard, believed that ‘Lautrec was too proud to submit to his lot, as a physical freak, an aristocrat cut off from his kind by his grotesque appearance. He found an affinity between his condition and the moral penury of the prostitute.’ Toulouse-Lautrec fractured both of his legs as a teenager, and they never healed or grew beyond those of a child. People mocked him for his appearance, which turned him into an outcast and alcoholic. Pushed to the margins of society, he could see the humanity and fragility of the women exploited in the brothels.

He spent long periods studying the women’s daily lives. He did not ask them to pose formally. Instead, he enjoyed the challenge of capturing their spontaneous interactions. ‘A model is always a stuffed doll,’ he said, ‘but these women are alive. I wouldn’t venture to pay them the hundred coins to sit for me, and God knows whether they would be worth it. They stretch out on the sofas like pets, make no demand and they are not in the least bit conceited.’

Toulouse-Lautrec probably painted this sketch in the brothel on the Rue des Moulins. He later painted the same place in a much bigger picture, In the Salon in the Rue des Moulins of 1894 (Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi). But this sketch only loosely resembles the final painting. He was exploring ideas rather than perfecting specific poses. The sketch seems to show the same corner of the room, but the larger work includes more space and four more women.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s sideways view, fast brushwork and unfinished style make the picture fresh and alive. We sense movement and intimacy. We entered a private space. Through Toulouse-Lautrec’s eyes, we become voyeurs, watching the women as they wait for clients and recover between visits.