He was the son of the Comte de Toulouse and he was last in line of his aristocratic family.
Today his family home is now a museum.
As a child Henri de Toulouse Lautrec was a weak and often sick child, learning to paint and draw at an early age. By the time he reached 14 years of age he had broken both legs. The bones did not heal therefore he never grew past the height 4 1/2 feet.
This building is one two matching Parisian buildings designed for a builders contest at Shellies Miniature mania in San Carlos, Ca.
This particular building is designed to replicate one of Toulouse Lautrecs ateliers in the Montmartre district of France, located on the Rue Tourlaque.
Monmartre was a working class district set on the outskirts of Paris, located on a hill or butte it was removed from the city center. It was the heart of a daring, racy entertainment
industry that lured young Parisians to its dance halls, cabarets, circuses and brothels.
It’s cheap rents and racy culture lured young avant-garde artists to Montmartre.
Toulouse Lautrec was an active part of this community. he would sit in the many nightclubs at night smoking and drinking absinthe while drawing and sketching the scenes that went on around him. During the day he recreated what he had sketched the previous evening. He was a heavy absinthe drinker which eventually led to his death in 1901.
My building creates the atmosphere of Paris at that period in time, with Toulouse Lautrec painting in his upstairs atelier one of his many models, while indulging in absinthe.
The “Absinthe Bar” located downstairs is a ficticious bar where young Parisian artists and patrons came to socialize.
Note the marbelized bistro tables and bentwood chairs I created for this scene, as well as the many glasses and bottles of absinthe. There is no electricity as gas lights were just coming into existence during this time.