According to critics, the English dancer May Milton was short on talent and physical beauty. After just one winter on the Paris stage, she reportedly departed for New York, never to be heard from again. Her enduring fame rests on this poster by Toulouse-Lautrec, designed for her American tour, which, apparently, never materialized.

As an indicator of the collectability of posters in the 1890s, a copy of May Milton can be seen in Picasso's 1901 painting of his studio on the Boulevard de Clichy.