LE CHAT NOIR

Find out how a striking black cat became synonymous with Montmartre’s golden age, says Helen Parkinson

- Helen Parkinson

Its haughty gaze seems to follow you across the room. No, this isn’t the Mona Lisa, but another glossy-haired subject of a famous artwork that adorns the walls of Parisian-inspired homes worldwide. Today, the classic lithograph, Tournée du Chat Noir de Rodolphe Salis, is perhaps better known than the venue it once proudly advertised – but it hasn’t always been that way. Le Chat Noir was the world’s first modern cabaret and the toast of Belle Époque Montmartre.

Culture club

A young artist from small-town Vienne, Rodolphe Salis arrived in Paris in his early twenties. Pioneering a new style of nightclub may have seemed like an unlikely pursuit for someone more used to crafting stations of the cross and other religious paraphernalia, yet Salis’ vision was revolutionary. His idea was to create a venue “where the gentry, burghers and peasants are now invited to drink absinthe after the usual manner of Victor Hugo and Garibaldi”.