Toulouse-Lautrec was drawn to the bohemian milieu of Montmartre as a means of escaping his stifling home environment, where his stunted legs, the result of a rare bone disease, had frequently made him feel like an outsider. Among artists and performers he finally found acceptance and threw himself into the decadent nightlife with great enthusiasm. He became a regular at many of the leading nightspots where he would sit and avidly sketch the acts. Noted for his kind-heartedness, loyalty and charm he also “gained a reputation quite early for someone who drank anything,” says Hannah Brocklehurst, curator of Pin-ups: Toulouse-Lautrec and the Art of Celebrity at the Scottish National Gallery.

His arrival in Paris coincided with one of the most exciting periods in the history of Western printmaking. Jules Cherét, ‘the father of the poster,’ had revolutionised the medium’s use of colour by bringing the first large lithographic printing presses to Paris. Avant-garde artists had swiftly embraced the new technology, sparking a printmaking and collecting boom.