2011/08/01 by Roger Jones, Roger A. Jones
Arts and Humanities · #Historical Art and Culture Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.3399/bjgp11x588565
openalex publication_date 2011/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The Courtauld Gallery, in the west wing of Somerset House, is one of London's best-kept secrets. Images you've known forever catch you off guard in the Courtauld's creaky-floored, airy rooms — Cranach's Adam and Eve, van Gogh's bandaged head, Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe and A Bar at the Folies-Bergeres. Now there's another treat. Nancy Ireson's Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril — Beyond the Moulin Rouge brings together works from European and American collections with the Courtauld's own 1892 portrait of Jane Avril in a compact visual exploration of the relationship between the artist and the celebrated Moulin Rouge dancer. Avril was nicknamed La Melinite, after a powerful form of explosive, and was exotic, alluring, and a star of the Montmartre scene. There are the originals of those posters that everyone had on their walls …