Plate: PL. 53

"The Moulin Rouge which virtually single-handedly created the cancan craze, opened it's doors on October 6, 1889, and this is…the historic poster for this occasion. (the same image was used again in the 1892 season) The donkeys are not Cheret's imagination. The two shrewd creators promoters, Joseph Oller and Charles Zidler, actually had girls riding donkeys outside to attract attention to the place. That soon became superfluous, as all Paris came to gawk at the display of orilly female underthings by high kickers like La Goulue (see PL.122) …ushering in the Naughty Nineties in a swirl of petticoats" (Rennert, PAI-XXVII, 342)

"The achievement of Cheret was to create a world of explosive happiness, and to paste it on the walls of Paris. As a painter he will be remembered for what Huysmans calls his 'spirit of nervous gaiety', as a lithographer for his superb technique, and as a poster artist for being the ancestor of all modern advertising." (Abdy p.36)