While Toulouse-Lautrec is accustomed to painting Montmartre cabaret dancers such as La Goulue, Jane here surprises us with the particular movement of her legs, a body that seems to dislocate itself.

Jane Avril, nicknamed "Mad Jane", likes to reproduce the convulsive seizures of hysterics when she dances.
Her first public dance was at the Bal des Folles organized by Charcot at the Salpêtrière.

Abused by her mother and then placed in an institution, she was locked up at the age of 13 at the Salpêtrière for her epileptic seizures. At the time, Charcot was treating diseases of the nervous system, particularly hysteria, but not all patients were ill. Requests for internment by fathers, brothers and husbands were sometimes arbitrary, to say the least, with reasons ranging from refusal of conjugal duty to refusal to do the housework to reading novels!

Every year, at mid-Lent, Charcot organises the Bal des Folles, inviting the fascinated Tout-Paris to watch his patients dance in disguise. Jane, who is soothed by dancing, becomes a sensation.

After two years at the Salpêtrière, Jane attempted suicide and was saved by prostitutes who introduced her to the Paris nightlife and cabarets. She danced at the Moulin Rouge and the Japanese Divan.

At the Moulin Rouge, she insisted on being the only one to wear red underwear, while the other dancers wore white, thus paving the way for the tradition of the revue soloist wearing a red dress. Even today, you can admire Jane's costume at the Moulin Rouge, the oldest still preserved there.