Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose family is wealthy and has a lineage that extends without interruption back to the time of Charlemagne, had grown up amid his family's typically aristocratic love of sport and art.

Most of the boy's time was spent at the Château du Bosc, one of the family estates located near Albi.

Henri's grandfather, father, and uncle were all talented draftsmen, and thus it is hardly surprising that Henri began sketching at the age of ten.

His interest in art had grown as a result of his being incapacitated in 1878 by an accident in which he broke his left thighbone.

His right thighbone was fractured a little more than a year later in a second mishap.

These accidents, requiring extensive periods of convalescence and often-painful treatments, have left his legs atrophied and made walking most difficult.

As a result, Toulouse-Lautrec had devoted ever-greater periods to art in order to pass away the frequently lonely hours.

Toulouse-Lautrec's first visit to Paris had occurred in 1872, when he enrolled in the Lycée Fontanes (now Lycée Condorcet).

He had gradually moved on to private tutors, and it is only after he had passed the baccalaureate examinations, in 1881, that the teenaged Toulouse-Lautrec resolves to become an artist.