Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Reine de joie (Queen of Joy). 1892. Lithograph, sheet: 59 7/16 x 39 7/16 in. (151 x 100.1 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers
My favorite part of Woody Allen’s 2011 film Midnight in Paris is the moment when actress Marion Cotillard reveals her preferred moment from Paris’s illustrious past. Instead of being magically transported to the roaring 1920s of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein, she prefers the glamour of the Belle Époque—the riotous 1890s when the City of Lights basked in all its outrageous fin-de-siècle glory.