Original lithographic poster in five colors backed on canvas. Signed with Lautrec's monogram and dated on the stone, "TL 95" lower left. Impression from the second state of two. From the edition of 100, aside from 4 trial proofs and a first state edition of 25. Printed by Ancourt, Paris.

Image size: 31 1/4" x 24"
Sheet size with canvas: 33 5/8" x 25 7/8"
Catalogue reference: Adriani 134

This poster was designed for an American tour of May Milton, an English dancer and friend of May Belfort. The dancer was known for having a pale, serious face and a strong chin. Here, Lautrec set May Milton’s features in altered directions on her face, as if in a Japanese woodcut.

Lautrec's large posters have survived mainly due to ardent nineteenth-century collectors, and the thieves who, as soon as the 'bill stickers' were out of sight, while the paste was still wet, would furtively peel them off walls. Apart from those pasted on walls and billboards out on city streets, impressions were also sold by bookshops and print dealers such as Edmond Sagot. And on occasion, the 'bill stickers' could be bribed to give up desirable posters. Picasso had Lautrec's poster "May Milton" in his Montmartre studio, because it appears in the background of his painting "Interior with Bather" 1901, now in the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. (Zervos I 103).