Born to an aristocratic family, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec manifested an extraordinary and precocious talent for drawing, as caricatures in his schoolbooks demonstrate. However, in his day professional artists were decidedly rare in families of this rank, and presumably Henri was meant to follow family tradition and take up a military career. However, his poor health and leg fractures in 1878 and 1879, which failed to heal properly, restricted young Henri's freedom considerably, prompting his mother to foster her son's artistic talent.