Lot 194: Can-Can: Three Panels.

Can-Can: Three Panels.When the can-can first appeared around 1830 in the working-class ballrooms of Montparnasse in Paris, it was originally lively, high-kickin' dance for couples. But by the time the can-can became a major draw in the 1890s at the Moulin Rouge and other establishments, popularized by dancers the likes of Jane Avril and La Goulue, it had become a woman-only affair, performed as much for voyeuristic demand as for diversionary reasons. These three Bernard panels, however, explore the dance in a less scandalous mode (the up-skirt view afforded in the bottom piece, for example, more resembles a magnified amoeba than it does the ruffle of frilly undergarments), each panel exploring the coquettish gallop in a more fashion-centric manner, with the vaudeville shenanigans of an accompanying song-and-dance man clearly in place for comic relief.
EDOUARD ALEXANDRE BERNARD (1879-1950)

Each: 33 x 11 1/2 in./84 x 29.2 cm

A.