Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draftsman, and illustrator. The period he created his art was known as the Belle Époque and his focus was on the decadence in Parisian society. Sescau was a close friend of Toulouse-Lautrec and an early photographer who popularized the cine-roman - an early form of film in which still images are accompanied by voice and music. Sescau had a reputation for attempting to seduce his models, hence Toulouse-Lautrec's depiction of the woman in the red dress in mid-flight in addition to the priapic configuration of the cloth hiding the photographer.