Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa (24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901), also known as
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French
painter,
printmaker,
draughtsman and
illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 19th century allowed him to produce a collection of enticing, elegant and provocative images of the modern, sometimes decadent, life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec is among the best-known painters of the
Post-Impressionist period, alongside
Cézanne,
Van Gogh and
Gauguin. In a 2005 auction at
Christie's auction house,
La Blanchisseuse, his early painting of a young laundress, sold for US$22.4 million and set a new record for the artist for a price at auction.