Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen was born in Lausanne in 1859 and, after arriving in Paris in 1881, soon became a member of the artistic community in Montmartre of which Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Adolphe Willette were also members. Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec depicted several of the same subjects in their work but it was the Swiss artist who enjoyed greater fame during the artists' lifetimes, no doubt due to his ability to undertake more commercial work, which reached a greater audience than Toulouse-Lautrec's controversial graphic work.