Jane Avril was born Jeanne Beaudon and danced her way out of an abused childhood and a stay in the Salpêtrière. The Chat Noir, the Divan Japonais, then the Moulin Rouge: she was noticed at once. Toulouse-Lautrec drew a first poster for her in 1893, and she would commission all the others from him. She had made her poster artist of a small, misshapen man, who made her the image of Montmartre.
The story
Jeanne Louise Beaudon was born in 1868. Boarded out, ill-treated by a sour and violent mother, she was admitted to the Salpêtrière for a nervous illness and found herself among Doctor Charcot's patients. A love affair that ended badly drove her to attempt her own life.
Dancing was the way out. The Bal Bullier, the Vachette, the Chat Noir, the Divan Japonais: she was noticed from her first turns. In 1889 she was still taking the money at the entrance to the rue du Caire, the mock Cairo street of the World's Fair; soon afterwards she was dancing at the Moulin Rouge in the Quadrille naturaliste.
In 1893 Toulouse-Lautrec drew her first poster. She went on commissioning the rest from him: out of a “small deformed man” she made her poster artist, and he made her the very face of Montmartre in the 1890s.
She danced for some thirty years. She lived several years with the humorist Alphonse Allais and came close to marrying him; Maurice Barrès made no secret of his admiration. In 1933 her memoirs ran as a serial in the paper Paris-Midi.
She died in 1943, forgotten. Her stele in Division 19, shored up in recent years, carries her married name misspelt — “Jeanne Blais” for Biais — followed by the one thing that made her name: ‘connue comme Jeanne Avril’, known as Jane Avril. Her husband, the poster artist Maurice Biais, who died in 1926, lies with her.
The grave
A sober stele, recently shored up, where the dancer's name appears only second: the inscription reads “Jeanne BLAIS, known as Jeanne AVRIL, 1868-1943”. The spelling of the surname is wrong — her husband, the poster artist and illustrator Maurice Biais, who died in 1926 and is buried with her, spelt it Biais. Toulouse-Lautrec's most famous model thus rests under a name that is neither her birth name, nor her stage name, nor quite her husband's.
On site, do not miss
The engraved line “known as Jeanne Avril”, beneath a misspelt civil name — and the name of Maurice Biais, her poster-artist husband.
Visitors' questions
Where is Jane Avril's grave?
In Division 19, Chemin Clairon, second row. The stele, recently reinforced, does not display her stage name prominently: one has to look for the line “known as Jeanne Avril” beneath the civil name “Jeanne Blais”.
Pierre DesprogesWhy is the name engraved not Jane Avril?
Because the stone bears her married name, and in a misspelled form at that: “Jeanne Blais” instead of Biais, the name of her husband, the poster artist Maurice Biais. The line “known as Jeanne Avril” was added below.
François-Joseph TalmaWhat was her connection to Toulouse-Lautrec?
She was his favourite model. He designed her first poster in 1893, and it was she who commissioned the ones that followed: much of our image of 1890s Montmartre comes from this collaboration.
Marcel MarceauDid she really spend time at the Salpêtrière?
Yes. As a teenager, a nervous illness had her hospitalised there among Dr Charcot's patients, following an abusive childhood and a suicide attempt. Dance was what brought her out of it.
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