In the Bois De Bologne

Au Bois du Boulogne shows Lautrec's inclination to use dark background tonalities in his late work, against which he has contrasted a light, central figure in the foreground. Lautrec admired this chiaroscuro effect in the work of Rembrandt, whose paintings he had seen in the Netherlands in 1894, as well as in the drawings and paintings of his contemporary Eugène Carrière. The present picture is among the last that Lautrec painted. His health rapidly deteriorating, the artist decided to leave Paris, and on 15 July 1901, he and Viaud left for Taussat-les-Bains, on the coast near Bordeaux. Lautrec suffered a stroke in mid-August and was then taken to his mother's home, the Château de Malromé, in Saint-André-du-Bois, near Bordeaux. There he died in the early morning hours of 9 September 1901, at the age of thirty-six.