L'Artisan modern was made for the publisher and designer André Marty to advertise his collection of 'objects usuels' and 'bijoux artistiques' produced for sale in ten Paris shops indicated on the poster. For the poster's subject, Lautrec devised a farcical scene based on the old lascivious theme of the doctor's visit. A maid and little dog invariably provided reactions that gave away their mistress's malady as love-sickness, while the doctor treated his patient in a variety of titillating ways. He replaces a traditional doctor with a modern craftsman whose workers' smock, hammer, and tool kit are comic variants on medical accoutrements. The stock characters of surprised maid and lap dog reveal what he is about to fix, and the wallpaper pattern of curvilinear exclamation marks both punctuates the joke and burlesques Art Nouveau decoration. Toulouse-Lautrec included his own monogram and the name of the artist who designed the poster's text (Niederkorn) on the toolbox, and portrayed his friend, the Belgian jeweler and medallist Henri Nocq, as the visiting artisan. Nora Desloge Toulouse-Lautrec, The Baldwin M. Baldwin Collection, San Diego Museum of Art, 1988, p. 246.