Yaneff.com

"L'Elysee Montmartre , the music hall that witnessed the birth of the quadrille, was the site of the Courier Francaise's yearly ball. Nonetheless, it was still a second class music hall and ballroom that struggled to survive. One of their last attempts to attract the public was to commission Cheret, whose art was the gold standard in advertising in that era, to design a poster. In his classic, elongated format he depicts a merry couple enjoying a masked ball amid a throng of revelers. Unfortunately even an exceptional poster was unable to save a mediocre establishment. It closed in 1893, unable to compete with the newly opened Moulin Rouge." (Swann)

“One of the big Paris dance halls advertises by showing a couple enjoying themselves with abandon. One of Chéret’s assets as a posterist was the way he gave his figures motion; there is a swing and a rhythm in his revelers that sweeps us right along with them. It’s hard to imagine one of Chéret’s figures as a household drudge or seamstress; they seem to exist only for the moment, heedlessly bound for pleasure alone. The posters make you forget everything mundane–and therein lies the master posterist’s greatest talent” (Gold, p. 100).