Beyond the Moulin Rouge: The Life and Legacy of La Goulue

Best known by her stage name, La Goulue (the Glutton), Louise Weber was one of the biggest stars of fin de siècle Paris, renowned as a cancan dancer at the Moulin Rouge and an iconic figure of modern art. Her life, however, has consistently been misrepresented and reduced to a footnote in the stories of men such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Where most accounts dismiss her rise and fall as fleeting, the truth is that her career as a performer spanned five decades, during which La Goulue constantly reinvented herself-as a dancer, animal tamer, sideshow performer, and muse of photographers, painters, sculptors, and filmmakers.

Drawing on previously overlooked materials, including medical records, media reports, and surviving pages from Louise Weber's diary, Will Visconti traces the life and impact of a woman whose cultural significance has been ignored in favor of the men around her, and who spent her life upending assumptions about gender, morality, and domesticity in France during the fin de siècle and early twentieth century.