Championed as one of the artistic highlights of the fin-de-siècle, the Elles album provides a candid glimpse into the world of Paris’s brothels. At this point in his career, Lautrec was spending time in a brothel on the Rue des Moulins, where he was able to sketch the women. Unselfconscious and natural in his presence, the models treated Lautrec as a friend, the images he produced reveal an empathy and respect for them. The only indicator in this image of the model's profession is the man’s hat in the foreground – likely the property of a client. This work was the frontispiece to the portfolio and used as the poster for the first exhibition of the series in 1896.