Moulin Rouge, Paris

When the Moulin Rouge opened in 1889, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was commissioned to create a series of posters to celebrate the event. The artist was already ensconced in the bohemian community of artists in the Montmartre area of Paris. But the commission, which saw Toulouse-Lautrec attending the party on the club's opening night, meant that he could earn some money of his own to support his decadent lifestyle. The obvious fringe benefit was being able to attend the cabaret - the artist was at the same table every night - and being able to drink and draw to his heart's content.

The Red Windmill that was to symbolise this world-famous landmark looks to have propelled Toulouse-Lautrec's career. The cabaret displayed his work and to this period of his life belong paintings of the singer Yvette Guilbert and the dancer known as "La Goulue" ("The Glutton") who created the infamous Can-Can. He also rubbed shoulders with Emile Bernard and Vincent Van Gogh.

It is not as if Toulouse-Lautrec needed the money. Born in 1864 into an aristocratic family in the south of France, he still had a regular income from his parents. The financial freedom with which he was gifted doubtless facilitated the artist in his quest to enjoy to the full the "joie de vivre" that prevailed in Montmartre at this time. He studied under the artist Fernand Cormon, whose studio was located on this Parisian hill, before graduating to a life of drinking, gambling and whoring, while all the time sketching.

Yet perhaps there is a secret in Toulouse-Lautrec's early years as to his success as an artist. In his early teens he broke both legs, which ceased to grow such that he had the upper body of an adult and the lower half of a child. This meant that when fully grown he was only five feet tall. Seated in the Moulin Rouge and enjoying the scene, he was able to knuckle down to creating a reputation for himself. After all, by the end of his career, he had created 5,084 drawings, 363 prints and posters, 737 canvases and 275 watercolours and established himself as one of the main Post-Impressionist painters and Art Nouveau illustrators.

In the end, however, the curtain on the stage that Toulouse-Lautrec observed had to close. In 1899, on his last legs, mainly due to excesses with alcohol, he entered an institution. He died in 1901 at the 36, having seen out the "fin de siecle" period that is associated with Montmartre and the Moulin Rouge in Paris.