Eschewing the sheltered and self-pitying life he might have chosen to lead, Lautrec became almost the proto-typical Bohemian artist, living in Montmartre with the determination to forge an independent life for himself in spite of his physical limitations. Certainly he didn't allow these limitations to temper a determinedly self-destructive pattern of existence which ultimately led to his death in 1901 at the age of thirty-seven. In the haunts of the demi-monde, behind a mask of disaffected conviviality, Lautrec observed and preserved images from the passing show. In these two sketches, reminiscent of the top-hatted figures in At the Moulin-Rouge, he depicts one of the habitues of the Montmartre night spots.